Crap Tactic: What Would You Do?

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by LDUB

I never said anything about that. What you have in this play is R intentionally roughing the kicker. This is not the normal type of roughing the kicker which you see on scrimmage kicks where R is attempting to block the kick and just happened to violently contact the kicker. In this play the only reason R was anywhere near the kicker was because he intended to commit a roughing foul.

Not only do we have R intentionally hitting a defenseless player, but he is intending to injure him with the hopes that he won't be able to play QB on offense.

R is intentionally committing a foul against a defenseless player with the hopes of injuring him. The reason the kicker was blocked had nothing to do with advancing the ball towards the goal line, the reason he was hit was to injure him.

The definition of a flagrant foul is "a foul so severe or extreme that it places an opponent in danger of serious injury..." That is exactly what happened. The kicker was placed in danger of serious injury when R fouled him.

1. Was the contact a foul? Yes.
2. Did it place the kicker in danger of serious injury? Yes.
3. Was R hoping to injure the kicker? Yes.

Question 3 isn't even a requirement for a flagrant foul, but you can factor it into your decision. I don't see how anyone could defend not ejecting the R player.

As I said you can do what you like in a game. I guess if a punter is roughed, we should consider ejection because serious injury is a possibility.

And I really do not care if you cannot see someone defending anything, there is a reason why some people work and keep working and others look for problems. I think if you ejected a player for this one act without helmet contact or lower leg contact, then you really might have to explain that issue of being too technical. I was in a game on Saturday where a kid dislocated his knee trying to go for the extra yard. I guess we should eject the players tackling him because he actually got seriously hurt.

It is called judgment and like I said I saw similar things like this before. That does not mean it will be an automatic ejection.

Peace