Good Block or penalty?

[mbyron]

Originally Posted by Jim D.

In the case of spearing/butt blocking/face tackling, etc. I think the normal philosophy of not calling a foul unless your 100% is a key part of the problem that the NFL, NCAA and NFHS have with these calls not being made.
For the spear, etc. we really need to look at it in the opposite way - unless we're 100% sure it's legal, we should throw the flag. The failure to penalize these hits is so great (death or paralysis) that we can't wait until it's a textbook case with a perfect angle before we call it. If we let these go because we're not 100% sure, then the kid will try it again and again until we either call it or he breaks his neck. We'd be doing the players, coaches and parents a favor to be too quick with the flag rather than hold off.

I doubt that this approach is feasible in practice. There must be thousands of blocks every Friday night that are "almost" spearing or "might be" a butt block. And how many such injuries have you seen in your games?

I agree with the general principle of making calls to promote safety. But this seems like a solution in search of a problem to me.

[Mike L]

The first one....picture quality is of such cr@p at the pt of impact I can't be sure where the initial contact is, and if I can't be sure I can't throw a flag.

The second one....nice block. Yeah maybe he dropped his head on the way in but the illegal contact rule requires intial contact with the helmet, which doesn't happen here.

[Jim D.]

Originally Posted by mbyron

I doubt that this approach is feasible in practice. There must be thousands of blocks every Friday night that are "almost" spearing or "might be" a butt block. And how many such injuries have you seen in your games?

I agree with the general principle of making calls to promote safety. But this seems like a solution in search of a problem to me.

Actually, I see very, very few in my games that come anywhere close to being illegal. Maybe I've been lucky, but I do think the fouls are rare which is why we seldom have those injuries. But I've also seen some clips of really nasty hits (usually labeled as "great" or "awesome" on Youtube) from NCAA games especially that are well covered by an official, but missed. OK, why are these missed? The coverage is there, the officials are well trained and presumably competent, yet they don't call the foul. What's the problem? I think it's the philosophy of we need to be 100% sure it's a foul before we throw. That philosophy works great on other calls, but not for a spear.

[bigjohn]

How about this? Good tackle? No foul?

YouTube - Football: RB knocked out

[ajmc]

Originally Posted by bigjohn

How about this? Good tackle? No foul?

YouTube - Football: RB knocked out

Looks like the runner ducked reacting to the defensive player. No foul.