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.