[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

Well if you can show me a ball carrier that can do that without trying to score, that will be a first.

Seems to me that's exactly equivalent to:

“Taking aim with the helmet, forearm, hand, fist, elbow or shoulders to initiate contact above the shoulders, which goes beyond making a legal tackle, a legal block or playing the ball, will be prohibited,” Colgate said.

...which is why I think the new verbiage is superfluous--whether applied to a runner's stiff arm, a tackler's action, or the motions of players blocking or beating blocks. In the past century (conservatively), when has it ever been legal to bring such a blow under the circumstances where you weren't legitimately trying to play the ball or an opponent pursuant to the object of the game? That's why the question, "Does this outlaw a straight arm?" is so easily answered; it doesn't change the legality of any already legal technique. Nor does it change the penalty. So what did it accomplish? Used to be they knew how to write a POE and instruct everyone down the line on it; now it seems they have to act like they're altering the rules.

No, but it usually takes a free hand to ward off a tackler as a ball carrier has to hold the ball with at least one of their arms. Disabilities aside of course.

I meant the palm on the same extremity as the locked elbow.

Maybe you are right, but I cannot image an situation where what you are describing is even possible. For one if you are so preoccupied trying to hit someone in the head, the defenders would be trying to strip the ball. And considering that in the game of football the ball is so important, I do not see anything over the top. I have been watching players like Earl Campbell or Walter Payton and other than a spear, I cannot think of a single action they did that i would ever call on a runner. And those were about as punishing a runner as anyone that every played the game.

The ballcarrier is not as likely to lay a gratuitous hit as players in position where their action will be inconsequential to play and where it's less likely officials' eyes will be on them, but it's not like it never happens, and it's much more likely to happen with Joe Schmoe in a game where the players outnumber the spectators than it is with an Earl Campbell or Walter Payton. And it's not the stiff arm to the head that a dirty player will attempt, but an uppercut once they're already in close quarters. It looks very natural. The player is running with the ball in one arm and swinging the other, and an opponent is tackling him on the ball side, and the ballcarrier swings that other arm up. He may have already made a fist, but you never noted that because it's natural for players to tense up all their flexors, so it's common for someone running hard to have hands in fists.