Sure, there's a chance you wouldn't have known where the LB came from. But there's a good chance you or the umpire would see where he came from. (Say the QB rolls right, to the ref's side, and the linebacker, QB, and ref are just about aligned.)

At any rate it's a hypothetical--assume you saw the linebacker start his 14 yard charge after the ball was thrown.

Do you still have "nothing else" other than a 15 yard roughing penalty?

If that was the case, not only would I have the roughing the passer penalty, but an ejection. However, he'd have to be a pretty damn fast linebacker to cover 14 yards and get a roughing penalty because by then the ball would have been long gone and you would be looking at a personal foul unnecessary roughness penalty.

right...okay, call it unnecessary roughness. but the reason you'd have 15 + the ejection is because of the 14 yard charge right? it's the long run that makes it flagrant?

so why wouldn't it be flagrant on the kicker in the youtube clip?

I guess I'm just a little surprised that some people's reactions were along the lines of: Hey, I'm not gonna call that flagrant because I can't divine the intent of the fouler.

I appreciate that divining intent can be tricky. But that's part of the job!
And of course we dont want to throw around 15 yard penalties or ejections liberally. But if that youtube clip isn't flagrant, then honestly, what is? Does the player need to have a weapon before it's flagrant? ;)

Also, it's misleading to compare the video hit to other legal hits that may be just as vicious...OF COURSE there are brutal legal hits. it's a violent game...but that's irrelevant. we're talking about personal fouls.

Exactly. Muppet News Flash: Football players hit each other really hard oftentimes. If it's late or with intent to injure, that can't be allowed to happen unpunished. A clean hard hit - that's football. A cheap shot, which I firmly believe this was, cannot stand.