Crap Tactic: What Would You Do?
 

The video:

YouTube - Taysom gets rocked

The story:

High School Football Coach Suspended After His Players Cheap Shot Opposing Kicker - FanHouse Back Porch

NBC Newschannel 6 Where News Comes First - Pocatello Head Coach Reinstated To Coaching Duties

As I look at the video, I see a clear and easy flag:

Rule 9-3-4: "The kicker or place-kick holder of a free kick may not be blocked before:
a. he has advanced 5 yards beyond his free-kick line; or
b. The kick has touched the ground or any other player."

15 yard penalty.

Looks to me like he gets cleaned at the 43 1/2. Am I seeing that correctly?

Flag for illegal block. It also looks flagarant to me and would probably DQ.

Not only have I called this, I look for this all the time as a BJ. I am not sure about the flagrant part; I would have to see the block up close. But no doubt this should be a personal foul. An illegal block is not as harsh.

Peace

In a five-man situation, Rut, you've got the kicker as he goes downfield, right? That's how it was put to me in a preseason scrimmage. (We don't have back judges below varsity level here, so I haven't worked it since, but I remember that.)

You have the kicker until he goes down field 5 yards or if he gets his balance or can affectively participate in the play.

Usually the receiving team drops off and this is not an issue. I would think based on what I have seen previously, that I would have noticed the player with a "brick" and got this foul. At least I hope I would.

Peace

It appears that the kicker had just gotten set after the kick, and then got lit up by the defender who did not stop at all from the initial run. I would definately flag it and toss him. That kind of cheap shot could paralyze somebody or worse.

Bresquire

Where is the line judge on this call? Our mechanics have the line judge on R's restraining line on a kickoff. It appears that R was clearly encroaching before the ball was kicked and the LJ should have thrown his flag, blown his whistle and killed the play before R got a chance to block/attack the kicker. Encroachment on R, 5 yard penalty.

Can we stop with the hyperbole ever time we see an illegal play? :rolleyes:

If that would have paralyzed the kid, then so would any pass thrown over the middle where players are literally trying to take the head off of the receiver. If you do not want to get hurt, stop playing football.

Peace

But if I stop with the hyperbole, I'm scared I could get somebody paralyzed.

Or worse.

As for the original play, as the umpire I am following the kicker down in our five man mechanics. (I don't know others.) I specifically watch for this type action. However, in our four man mechanics on sub-varsity games, I am on the side line and have not been specifically looking for it in the past. I will in the future. Thanks for posting the play as a reminder.

It looks like their lineup is LJ and U on opposite ends of K's line and L on R's line. (We have almost the same but U with kicker.)

You know, I didn't even look for that, but you're right! It's VERY close. For that player to get in that quickly, he's got to get extremely lucky or encroach and it appears to me that he may have crossed the restraining line before the kick. It's bang-bang. Yeah, the LJ has the 50 and should get that.

The coach's explanation that "we do it like that all the time" (a) is bollocks (because nobody worries about taking out the kicker) and ( b) probably wouldn't stand up to a review of game tapes that other schools have from playing them (like most "last week's crew didn't call that at all!" things).

I've seen the video a few times and I can't tell if the R player encroached or not. Either way, you'd think that the LJ who is positioned on R's restraining line would notice a player blasting over the line like a rocket while the rest of his team is stationary or moving away from their line. I would hope that my LJ would have his curiosity aroused enough to watch what was going to happen.

The BJ and LJ responsibilities are:

1) encroachment
2) on-side kick (ball in air, on ground, 10-yards, etc.)
3) blocking

Once they see the ball in the air they should check the status of the kicker.

So are you saying you would not penalize this as a flagrant foul, JRut?

Flagrant foul for what, a hard hit? Do you call flagrant fouls for other personal fouls not specifically subscribed by the rules?

Unless I saw something like leading with the head or some other addition to this contact, calling this a flagrant foul all by itself is a stretch. And you cannot see anything I just suggested on this tape.

Amen. This was just a hard hit- not a flagrant hit.

If you watch the play from the AOL Fanhouse site, you can pause the play just as the ball is kicked. The defender is clearly a yard into the neutral zone when the ball is kicked. Looks like the crew just wasn't prepared for it.

This is more than just an average hard hit.

First off it is a roughing foul. Roughing fouls are in place because under certain situations come players are placed in defenseless positions and therefore are at a high risk of injury.

Now when you watch the video the only reason the R player is running up there is because he intends to intentionally rough the kicker. I would say intentionally roughing a kicker or holder that hard on a scrimmage kick would have a good chance of being an ejection. At least on a scrimmage kick R has a good reason to be near the kicker as they have a chance at blocking the kick. This was a free kick, there is no reason to be anywhere near the kicker.

This is an obvious attempt by R to put the hardest hit possible on someone, who is protected by rule because he is in a vulnerable position, with the hopes of injuring him so he will no be able to preform his duties as QB while the team is on offense.

There is no way the player should not be disqualified.

In your game you can do what ever you like.

But just based on the violence of the hit is not in my opinion a very good indicator to eject or not to eject, when we do not eject players for similar violent illegal contact. Unless I saw a player plant their helmet under the chin of the kicker, then I would not say that this is a flagrant offense. It could be, but not automatic and certainly not based on what you have said. We see violent cheap hits on punters, quarterbacks and even late hits and I do not see many people advocating an ejection on those plays. Now if he went for his legs maybe you could convince me, but the shot was only cheap because the rules say that the kicker must go 5 yards or get their balance. Outside of that, nothing is inherently illegal about the hit. In my opinion that does not make it a flagrant offense (automatically).

Peace

Canadian Ruling
 

CANADIAN RULING:

Flag for R offside and R unnecessary roughness. The UR could be RP.

K option to re-kick 20 (30=RP) yards up, or give the R the ball, 15 (25=RP) yards back.

It's a dickhead hit. But I don't know that it's flagrant. It's illegal because of where it occurs on the field and probably shouldn't have occurred because of the possible encroachment.

It's a hard hit on a player who probably wasn't 100% ready for it (that's why that rule exists - because the kicker is in a vulnerable position).

But flagrant? I don't know. If it's in the head area or leading with the helmet or below the waist or something like that, then it's one thing. But the force of the hit itself doesn't make it flagrant.

Football is an aggressive sport. Players hit hard. Just hitting someone real hard doesn't always make it flagrant.

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.

If I saw that play in a game I would probably eject the player. It's one thing if you start in the normal standing position and then cross the receiver line to hit a kicker after he has kicked it. This player took a running start and hit the kicker a second or two after he kicked it. That was extra-ordinary and definitely flagrant.

I'm guessing the coach will eventually get an USC for loudly complaining about your foul.

One problem I see with calling this during the game though is it's possible neither the BJ or LJ could see the hit. The BJ is watching for encroachment on the kicking team and the kicking team is not that far beyond the kicker when he was hit. The LJ is keying on the other R blockers going down field. Since it happened so quickly in the middle of the K players, they may not have seen it until after the kicker was hit. If you didn't see him get hit, you can't assume how he got there.

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

Did you read what I said? :confused:

"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."

Did you read my 3 questions? What was question #1? If it isn't a foul then you're never going to eject anyone.

Bison, per the Fed Mechanics manual, the BJ is responsible for watching initial blocks against the kicker and holder (if present). My thought on this play especially is that somebody has to pick it up, the action the offender before the kick is too conspicuous to not take a look at him.

The rule book clearly gives you an out in this instance in that it's 15 for starters because he contacted the kicker prior to him going five yards. So you're safe there.

If that's not enough of a deterrent, then you know they're headhunting. I'd suggest strongly to the coach that a similar contact on the next or a later kickoff would result in not only the ejection of the player, but the coach as well. If you can do that.

I get it. You said something so it must be true. Thanks for the heads up. ;)

Just because you raise a question, does not make it valid.

Look this is all about judgment. If you want to eject someone for this act only, go right ahead. I am not the person you have to answer to. You on the other hand will have to answer to your people. And when you do, all that matters is what they say. Same applies to me. I have no problem by making a judgment that I can only make on a tape and not in person, to just call a PF for this act based on what I see. If you have any other further information specific, I might reconsider. And I am sorry but the violence of the hit alone does not change my mind. There are a lot of late or cheap hits that I never eject players for. This is no exception.

Peace

Well said.

It is FLAGRANT because his intent was to hurt the player! No way should the kicker be hit that soon after he kicks and someone not have to pay.

I say this is different than scrimmage kick situations then you say we might as well start ejecting for scrimmage kick fouls as well. I already said that they were completely different.

Considering the definition of a flagrant foul is "a foul..." it made perfect sense to ask if the contact was a foul. It is hard to say my question for what constitutes a flagrant foul is not valid when I am quoting the definition of a flagrant foul.

You missed the point. I said the violence wasn't important. How many of those hits involved intent to injure?

I also do not see the the flagrant nature of this foul either. I am reading a lot of personal feelings but nothing by rule that makes this an automatic foul. I think you are reaching to call this a flagrant act. I am not seeing this point of view either.

I don't think anybody is saying this is automatic, just that is what our judgment is. LDUB posted the relevant definition of a flagarant foul above and that is what some of us are basing our decisions on.

Not everybody agrees and that is fine.

It sounds to me like he says it is automatic. If that is what he wants to call that is OK with me. I just do not agree with that point of view.

Realize, this is your opinion of the particular situation. Some here agree with that opinion, some here do not. All your frantic stomping is not going to change anyone's mind about that. It's a judgement call that the covering official has to decide.

I completley agree.

Agreed. I just wonder if the BJ was able to pick up the way the offender was running to the line if he's focused on the kicker's line watching for encroachment. Since the offender hit the kicker so soon after the kick, I also wonder if the other players on K shielded the BJ at all. His first look at the kicker might have been him lying on the ground and wondering how he got there. The HL or LJ (or maybe even the R from down field) may have a better look at it. I agree someone has to get this for at least 15 and consider the ejection option which has been discussed to death. With the benefit of being able to watch the video several times, I guess I would lean toward ejection. It's the intent of the receiving team that bothers me the most.

Another thing to factor in here also is whether the kicker made attempts during previous kickoffs to cover the kick downfield. If he never did, then there is no reason for R to even block him. If he did kick off and then participate, then at least R could say they were taking out a potential tackler. That could factor into my decision if I saw this live.

REPLY: I agree with JRut here. I couldn't see very well the hit on the kicker. Needless to say, it was an illegal block. But is it a personal foul? Is it flagrant? Just because it offends our sensibilities doesn't necessarily make it deserving of a DQ.

I've seen blocks on the wall of a kick return that are absolutely "severe and extreme" and almost lift the defender out of his shoes. You know the kind where the defender turns to pursue the runner around the corner and a blocker is peeling back and lights him up. Is he in danger of being hurt by this type of block? Most definitely. Am I calling it flagrant? Absolutely not.

I don't consider this flagrant because of the severity of the hit. I'm concerned because this guy did something unusual that is not normally seen in a football game only with the intent to injure this player. The blocks you describe are in the normal course of action blocking a player that is attempting to tackle a runner.

Severity of the hit comes into play somewhat. If he ran up and just got in the guys way, then I've definitely only got the illegal block (assuming it was within 5 yards or the ball had not hit the ground). But the way this guy took a running start directly at the kicker to hit him as soon as possible and as hard as he did could definitely justify a flagrant foul and ejection.

If this happened in a real game and I saw it though, I would probably be so stunned I might initially forget to throw my flag.

I understand that judgment can be different.

What did you judge was the reason for R to block the kicker in that fashion?

Yes, it is a personal foul. The kicker did not advance 5 yards before he was contacted. That is roughing the kicker which is a personal foul.

Do those blocks have to do with advancing the ball down the field? I assume A was blocking B to keep them away from the ball carrier. What was the reason the kicker was blocked in the video play?

It doesn't really matter what the "reason" for the block was, what matters is what did the blocker actually do. Yes, he hit a kicker who was potentially in a vulnerable position. But was the hit itself "so severe or extreme" to rise to the very onerous penalty of flagrant. I don't think so. You think different, and that's fine.

You didn't answer the question.

What did you judge was the reason for R to block the kicker in that fashion?

I have no idea. Maybe the coach told the kid to hit the kicker and he did not know the rule. You have no idea what was or what was not the reason unless the kid tells you. The severity of the hit would not change the fact that this was a flag.

I really think that if you would eject the player in "that play" that your state association would back you up after seeing the video. You have to see ones like this on a play by play basis to know if you have an ejection or not.

This is without a doubt a flagrant PF. There is one and only one reason for that block. It is meant to "take out" the kicker in one form or another. Either to injure him or to make him so concerned about being hit that he can't kick. Knocking down someone at that point when the ball is so far away is useless since the player can get back up and make a tackle. Therefore that is not a football play. If the kicker is the safety on the kickoff (which they often are) then there is sometimes someone assigned to block him. That person would normally be taught to shadow the safety and make the appropriate block when the time comes. This player was headhunting plain and simple.

Woah, there's all sorts of "doubt" in your conclusion. Let's not forget this is HS football game and every now and then HS football players don't execute plans exactly as they're supposed to, or were told to.

There are any number of legitimate reasons for "that block", if it were executed properly in compliance with the rules of the game. You have no idea, "what it was meant to do" and your entire premis is based on suposition and speculation. Just for a moment, consider how many kick returns are ended by the kicker making a score saving tackle. What gives you the credibility to decide that the only acceptable approach is to, "shadow the safety and make the appropriate block when the time comes"?

If blocking was something that could be done exactly as pre-planned, at only the appropriate instant, football would be a much different game. Especially on a free kick, blocking is more of something you hope enough of the players can do well enough to allow your returner to escape the defenders who successfully elude your blockers.

This particular play may have been all you suspect, but you have no way of knowing ANY of that and your decision as to penalizing the action should be based on specifically what you observe, not what you imagine might have been going through the player's mind.

If the contact was severe enough, and of the nature, to earn first a penalty and possibly a disqualification, that should be determined by what you observe, not what you suspect, or worse, imagine.

Look, I think we can all figure out that this was more than just a (wink-wink, nudge-nudge) "block." There's pretty much no question in my mind (at least, as someone a thousand miles away) what the intent of the whole deal was.

But I'm not sure we can flag or eject people for malicious intent, can we? Unless they actually do something that's not within the rules? We judge intent on intentional grounding, right, in some instances? They took intent out of the spearing rule a couple of years back. I'm not sure they want us reading minds, even if a reasonable official for whom this is not his first rodeo can figure out that R is headhunting.

The hit was hard - no question. If that exact same hit (same force, same delivery, same point of impact) happens ten yards farther downfield, is it a foul? Kids get blown up all the time on kickoffs and punts.

Now, you've got a foul for contacting the kicker before he goes 5 yards or sets himself to be able to participate in the play. No question. That's 15. It's possible (it's real close) that R encroached on the play (looks like he hits the 50 about simultaneously with the kick, but only the LJ would know for sure). Those are both fouls.

But the hit itself? Well, you'd have to be there. You'd have to be experienced, you'd have to, in your judgment, believe it was a flagrant hit.

Now, if I'm K's coach, I do one of two things: I tell my kicker to run up to the ball on the next kickoff and stop a yard short and see if R encroaches and keep doing it until they stop sending that guy on the fly trying to get to the kicker as quickly as possible. OR I put my biggest lineman on the kickoff team right next to the kicker and say "That guy is YOUR responsibility" and have HIM blow R up. We'd see how long that tactic lasted.

A third possibility is to keep my Stanford-bound QB in the game and throwing in the 4th quarter if I had a big lead. His team won the game, 26-13 as it was.

g. Make any other contact with an opponent which is deemed unnecessary
and which incites roughness

c. Flagrant — a foul so severe or extreme that it places an opponent in danger
of serious injury, and/or involves violations that are extremely or persistently
vulgar or abusive conduct.

If that was the case then the rules would make this a flagrant foul all by itself. Any other part of the field this play is completely legal.

I think NF 2.16.2.c (The NFHS definition of "Flagrant") is a perfect example of, yet another, NFHS rule that recognizes and relies on the common sense, understanding of the game and judgment of competent officials to appropriately enforce rules designed to achieve specific, broad objectives.

The ambiguity is no accident, rather it provides the flexibility necessary to match a specific action against a general, reasonable to understand, standard that can be applied to a never ending variety of different actions.

That judgment is placed, soley, in the hands of the individual official observing a particular action, and anyone who dares to speculate about how close they can get to where that fine line may have been drawn, does so at the risk of great peril.

You could say unnecessary, sure.

And I guess you could say flagrant, yeah. Now, it doesn't say a tackle or a block so severe that it places an opponent in danger of serious injury. It may be overlooked in history, but I am not sure a foul was called on this play, was it?

http://assets.philadelphiaeagles.com...ik3_080208.jpg

The block or tackle can be clean and just really, really hard. That's just physics.

The reason the hit is a foul is because of where it occured on the field (less than five yards from the spot of the kick, and on the kicker). Is the same exact hit five yards downfield, or on a cornerback if you're a fullback leading a sweep, a foul simply by virtue of the impact of the hit itself?

I can't say saying, "Now, now, son, don't hit your opponent quite so hard, what do you think this is, football?"

Football is an aggressive/semi-barbaric game by its very nature. People get hit hard. It's not always a foul, much less flagrant. If it's at the head or the knee or late or a Charles Martin situation, absolutely.

Bottom line: this was an asshat move. I don't think there's any question why it was done, but we're not supposed to be mind-readers all the time. The hit is a foul because of where and when it occured. If you wanted to call flagrant and eject him, you may very well be within your rights and may very well be able to sleep quite well. But you might have some 'splainin' to do. If you can make your case and the powers that be are with you, great.

Like I said, though, there are also other ways around the situation and ways to stop it from happening again that don't necessarily have to come from us. Coaches have a responsibility to keep their teams from being put in disadvantageous situations, too.

The R player ran right between two K players, who were running down the field, to get to the kicker who was just standing there. If R was really trying to prevent K from getting to the ball carrier wouldn't it make more sense to block someone running towards the ball rather than someone just standing there?

I understand that people might disagree on whether this is flagrant or not, but it is obvious that this is more that just a standard block.

The play is only illegal because of where it took place. This is no different than a late hit or block that does not involve the play. Those are also not standard blocks but we do not eject players because of them.

How is it so obvious?. Perhaps his assignment was to block the kicker, 5 yards or more in advance of the kick, and he just forgot the 5 yards part. Maybe two of his teammates were assigned to block the two players he ran past. Perhaps he got confused and didn't follow his assignment. Perhaps he's just an idiot and wasn't paying attention to, or just forgot or misunderstood, his instructions.

Then again maybe the kicker is dating his girlfriend and he's got a grudge to settle, or any one of a thousand other possibilities.

The bottom line is that YOU have to make a decision and there's nobody available to help you. Your decision, what ever it is will stand and it will likely displease someone regardless of what you decide.

I'm just suggesting you have to be SURE of what you decide, as you may well have to answer for your decision long after the fact, and if your decision is based on speculation about why whatever was done, was done you need to be really careful how you explain things.

And that, ladies and jellyspoons, is the bottom line on a great many of these "gray area" calls. Do the best you can, make your ruling, be prepared to take heat for it, but if, in your heart of hearts, you feel it's the right call, that's the best you can do. We can argue about it until the cows come home. But when it's you on that field, you have to make the decision and you have to back it up and justify it to the state (and hopefully not a court of law - though I believe courts have been pretty good about letting officials' judgment stand*).

*The preceding is not legal advice. Consult an attorney.

That was exactly the argument I made almost 30 yrs. ago for calling UR on some plays like that even when there was no specific rule violation. It was in the Northern States Football League, which played their own rules, and only the NCAA had a roughing-the-kicker rule that applied to free kicks, and even that was very recent. The Chi. Lions were sending three R players running at the kicker on every kickoff, which obviously hurt their blocking on the runback. Once one of them tried to clothesline the kicker. I asked the officials afterward whether they could've called this UR on general principles because it was clearly done to injure or intimidate the kicker rather than to improve the runback. They said, barring a specific rule like NCAA's, no.

Sending someone running at the kicker like that was a common tactic at the time (since specialty kickers who weren't built like football players had become common), but sending 3 made it pretty obvious, yet officials are loathe to make that kind of judgement. So I'm not surprised that few would now want to bump up the PF to a disqualifying foul. It's like, well now that there's a specific rule against it, the prescribed penalty takes care of it.

Robert

I agree.

Peace

interesting post
 

I have not seen this yet, im glad i viewed your thread, in my associations 4 man mechanics the HL is on R's restraining line, LJ has the kicking team line, WH deep, and U is on the K line.

I'm in Massachusetts where we use NCAA rules for highschool so it might be different from Federation. but ncaa 9-1-2 lists 18 contact fouls, all of which are personal fouls, 15 yards, and carry the provision for ejection if flagrant.

In this play the "blocker" took a 14 yard running start before hitting the kicker illegally. But say it was a scrimmage play: QB, 7 yards behind LOS, throws a forward pass. Team B defender, 7 yard beyond LOS, makes the same 14 yard charge and puts the same hit on the QB.

Would you call this a "regular" roughing the passer call? Or would you eject the Team B player as well?

While something like this is not an automatic ejection in every case, it should have been in this one. Watch the play closely. See how many steps the kicker even took after he came back to the ground and regained a "normal" run after the kicking mechanics were completed. One, if even that. Matter of fact, this is the kind of thing that gets players suspended and fined in the NFL, and I wouldn't be surprised if some state HS associations might even suspend the player after the fact even without a penalty on the field.

Scrimmage kicks are different than the scrimmage plays for this kind of thing. There are different rules in place for the protection of the kickers (and holders if present) than for someone in a scrimmage play. That's why the NCAA makes it clear what a scrimmage kick is by definition. But, there are rules protecting vulnerable receivers (see OU vs. Texas Tech this past Saturday) and roughing the passer (once the ball is gone, you can hit them but not tackle them). As for your play, you do have roughing the passer (provided the quarterback has released the ball), but you would not (as the R) would have known where that linebacker came from so nothing else except a heck of a Sportscenter highlight maybe.

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.