Ravens/Steelers game

[ajmc]

Originally Posted by wwcfoa43

What is illegal is using the helmet as the primary force of contact so that the contact becomes a ramming action ("butt, spear and ram" do appear in rulebooks).

So long as players tackle by moving forward and bending their bodies, the head (and consequantly the helmet) will lead the way!

When the "Helmet Contacts" (Butt blocking, Face tackling, Spearing) were originally declared as illegal there was a clear and definite reference to the intention and motivation of the player delivering the blow. At the very beginning with "Spearing" I seem to recall the allegation of "punishing the opponent" was included in the definition. Face Tackling and Butt Blocking were terms evolving from expansion and refinement of the original problem called "Spearing".

At that time the rumor was that an alternate approach, of simply removing the facemask, received serious consideration as a means of persuading players to stop using the helmet as a weapon should the "Spearing" prohibition fail to accomplish the objective.

As suggested above, head to head contact in the game is inevitable, simply due to the nature of the game and it's inherent collisions. Unfortunately, head to head collisions are not always predictable, consistent or intentional and really can't be covered adequately by a blanket description.

As no two collisions are exactly alike the final determining factor, as is so often the case, boils down to the judgment of the covering official and what he concluded, based on what he observed.

[Robert Goodman]

What coaches called spearing was what the rules later called butt blocking, while what the rules called spearing was basically just a way to recognize a form of piling on or UR that could've been flagged previously. Both were with the top of the helmet, and the blocking technique originated before face bars, so it's not clear that abolishing face masks would've been effective. However, face tackling could be met with poke-in-the-eye, so removing the fask mask would undoubtedly have worked there.

Seems now they're trying to achieve the same effect on the solar plexus with hand blocking that they had previously with spearing. The coaches even refer to it as punching, although it's delivered with an open hand.

Robert

[ajmc]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

Seems now they're trying to achieve the same effect on the solar plexus with hand blocking that they had previously with spearing. The coaches even refer to it as punching, although it's delivered with an open hand.

Robert

Unfortunately, the problem often lies within the very nature of the beast. With most rules, as soon as the rule is written creative minds focus on finding exactly what the very edge of legality permits, and where that line is drawn.

I recall, with the original "Spearing" rule there was such an intense effort to reduce the type of catostrophic injury, the suggestion that removal of all face masks even being considered as an alternative solution was intended to underscore the seriousness of the problem and the commitment to solve it.

The inference was that removing face masks, although parhaps not directly addressing contacts with the top of the head, would absolutely cause most players to reconsider leading with any part of the head, with the face unprotected.

There was a time, before facemasks, where football players were recognized by the number of directions the bridge of their nose turned in, which is doubtfully a period today's players would want to revisit.