Helmet comes off during a tackle, due to prior foul?

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by Adam

It's high school. Of course that's our job.

Our job is to apply the rules, to make up a rule for a kid that cannot properly see. If he could not see, why did he run like he could? Sorry, I totally disagree that this has anything to do with the level.

Peace

[asdf]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

Our job is to apply the rules, to make up a rule for a kid that cannot properly see. If he could not see, why did he run like he could? Sorry, I totally disagree that this has anything to do with the level.

Peace

I have absolutely no problem "making up a rule" in order to save a high school student athlete from potential serious injury.

I don't think it's a stretch to say that in this situation you'd be hard pressed to find any state athletic administrator that thinks otherwise.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by asdf

I have absolutely no problem "making up a rule" in order to save a high school student athlete from potential serious injury.

I don't think it's a stretch to say that in this situation you'd be hard pressed to find any state athletic administrator that thinks otherwise.

Well I don't and I am fine with my stance. Not in something like this for sure. And this is not even close. Again the players have some responsibility for their own safety as well. If they cannot see why would you run like you can? You are also taking away an opportunity from the defense to strip the ball or make another play that benefits them too. Our actions as officials also does not "save" players from injury. They are likely already injured by the time we take action at all. And if you blow the whistle, it better be treated as an inadvertent whistle by rule, not some "The play was stopped" crap which I am reading.

Peace

[asdf]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

Well I don't and I am fine with my stance. Not in something like this for sure. And this is not even close. Again the players have some responsibility for their own safety as well. If they cannot see why would you run like you can? You are also taking away an opportunity from the defense to strip the ball or make another play that benefits them too. Our actions as officials also does not "save" players from injury. They are likely already injured by the time we take action at all. And if you blow the whistle, it better be treated as an inadvertent whistle by rule, not some "The play was stopped" crap which I am reading.

Peace

If the players are responsible for their own safety, then why do we penalize
them for continued participation after their helmet comes off? Did they somehow obtain some additional advantage with their helmet off? Of course not.....

We penalize them because it's not safe for them to continue.

Any player is at risk on any play in football. This situation may come up in a career for one out of ten officials, making this not just any play. Now we have a runner that is essentially blind, not able to prepare for contact and wearing equipment that due to a foul by an opponent, may actually cause him catastrophic injury.

An inadvertent whistle hurts nobody here. The penalty will be accepted, the foul enforced from the basic spot, the player remains not only in the game, but is able to attend school tomorrow.

Look at the big picture.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by asdf

If the players are responsible for their own safety, then why do we penalize
them for continued participation after their helmet comes off? Did they somehow obtain some additional advantage with their helmet off? Of course not.....

We penalize them because it's not safe for them to continue.

There are a lot of things we do not penalize that players, coaches and schools are responsible for.

And also this is a new rule that came from the NCAA. It was not even an NF Rule until this year. The NF is lazy and came up with a rule from another level. And it was only a rule at the NCAA level after a lot of research of helmets coming off and when they tracked every incident. The NF just adopted an already used rule.

Originally Posted by asdf

Any player is at risk on any play in football. This situation may come up in a career for one out of ten officials, making this not just any play. Now we have a runner that is essentially blind, not able to prepare for contact and wearing equipment that due to a foul by an opponent, may actually cause him catastrophic injury.

That is great, but what does that have to do with the rule? I have seen many injuries over my career and none actually took place for this specific action shown in the video. Actually I cannot think of a single time where a player was even hurt before the rule when their helmet came off. Players then took actions not to get hit or they continued to play being aware they had no protection on their head. So players have been protecting themselves for years. We now have rules that address these issues specifically and I am fine with them, but not making judgments based on what I think a player might or might not do with their helmet falling off is not my job. Again, you are taking the opportunity away from the opponents to make a play too.

Originally Posted by asdf

An inadvertent whistle hurts nobody here. The penalty will be accepted, the foul enforced from the basic spot, the player remains not only in the game, but is able to attend school tomorrow.

Look at the big picture.

Sorry, it does. It hurts the opponent to make a play. And yes a coach will be upset if you take that away from them too. I am looking at the big picture as well. I am a multiple sport officials that does not completely make up rules to satisfy some silly fear (which has never happen to most of us) of someone getting hurt that did not even take place in this very example used. I have seen players in my entire career get more hurt by following every rule and doing the most routine things. Even these things we have rules for often do not result in injury. And now you want to make up a rule completely because the kid did not get a properly fitted helmet and then decided to keep playing when he could not see? And just because he does not have a helmet does not mean he will be hit in the head or that his only fear he has to worry about. Coaches used to tell our top running back in high school he had to learn when to go down when players where hanging on him. He learned and fortunately avoided some injuries to other parts of his body then his head.

Peace

[jTheUmp]

Originally Posted by asdf

If the players are responsible for their own safety, then why do we penalize
them for continued participation after their helmet comes off? Did they somehow obtain some additional advantage with their helmet off? Of course not.....

Actually, we penalize the player in that situation because the rulebook says that we penalize the player in that situation. Nothing more, nothing less.

Last year, we didn't penalize the player in that situation because there was no rule basis to support penalizing the player in that situation.

[asdf]

Originally Posted by jTheUmp

Actually, we penalize the player in that situation because the rulebook says that we penalize the player in that situation. Nothing more, nothing less.

Last year, we didn't penalize the player in that situation because there was no rule basis to support penalizing the player in that situation.

And the rule was put into place becasue of.........

SAFETY

[Rich]

Originally Posted by asdf

And the rule was put into place becasue of.........

SAFETY

The rule about killing the play when a runner's helmet comes COMPLETELY off has been in place for a long time.

It didn't come completely off. I'm not killing the play.

It did come off because of the foul, though. He's not going to have to sit for a play.

[MD Longhorn]

Originally Posted by asdf

We penalize them because it's not safe for them to continue.

We penalize them because the rule says to penalize them.

The rule says to penalize them because it's not safe, in the eyes of those in charge, for them to continue.

This is an important distinction that you are failing to comprehend.

[mgussy]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

Well I don't and I am fine with my stance. Not in something like this for sure. And this is not even close. Again the players have some responsibility for their own safety as well. If they cannot see why would you run like you can? You are also taking away an opportunity from the defense to strip the ball or make another play that benefits them too. Our actions as officials also does not "save" players from injury. They are likely already injured by the time we take action at all. And if you blow the whistle, it better be treated as an inadvertent whistle by rule, not some "The play was stopped" crap which I am reading.

Peace

If you want to consider an IW it will be ignored because A will accept the penalty. You argue that you are taking away the ability for B to make a play and strip the ball or gain an advantage. Even if they do, A will accept the penalty and keep the ball.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by mgussy

If you want to consider an IW it will be ignored because A will accept the penalty. You argue that you are taking away the ability for B to make a play and strip the ball or gain an advantage. Even if they do, A will accept the penalty and keep the ball.

If you have been paying attention, I am not arguing just this specific play.

Peace

[mgussy]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

If you have been paying attention, I am not arguing just this specific play.

Peace

Yea sorry about that, I didn't get to the second page of the thread before responding. Now I see you are arguing for the sake of arguing. I recall why I don't visit this site much anymore because of all this B.S. between fellow officials. Rut, you are a Hoot. I wish you and Big John would get it rolling again, was always a good read. Well back to the Best Officiating Forum I go.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by mgussy

Yea sorry about that, I didn't get to the second page of the thread before responding. Now I see you are arguing for the sake of arguing. I recall why I don't visit this site much anymore because of all this B.S. between fellow officials. Rut, you are a Hoot. I wish you and Big John would get it rolling again, was always a good read. Well back to the Best Officiating Forum I go.

It is arguing to be arguing that we apply a rule that has a clear interpretation? Forgive me, but I cannot even imagine having this discussion off this site, because the people that have experience would shut this silliness down immediately and those would know their place and shut up. We always have "that guy" and "that guy" is anyone that suggest we apply an subjective standard to something like "safety" when there is no rules support to do just that.

Peace

[Scuba_ref]

Originally Posted by mgussy

Yea sorry about that, I didn't get to the second page of the thread before responding. Now I see you are arguing for the sake of arguing. I recall why I don't visit this site much anymore because of all this B.S. between fellow officials. Rut, you are a Hoot. I wish you and Big John would get it rolling again, was always a good read. Well back to the Best Officiating Forum I go.

Where is this other Forum? I also get tired of certain egos that can't see another point of view and are never wrong.

[MD Longhorn]

Originally Posted by mgussy

Now I see you are arguing for the sake of arguing.

Sorry you feel you must leave. Even when people disagree, this site is a good source for officiating help.

He was not arguing for the sake of arguing.

He (and I) are disagreeing with the idea that plays need to be killed anytime an official suddenly feels conditions for a player are unsafe. A few "extreme" situations have been presented, none of which (to me) justify killing a play before it's done. And as a semi-related aside, in my many years of many sports I've seen more injuries happen as a result of some people stopping play and others not stopping than any other situation. Killing play when it didn't naturally end is more likely (imho) to cause an injury than to save one. Also, in the extreme situations used to justify killing it early - on most of them the injury had already occurred... killing it at that point serves no purpose at all.

Other than that one in a billion situation where a life might be at stake and seconds matter (had an older gentleman pitching hit hard in the sternum who went down immediately once where this applies), I can really only envision one situation where killing a play early would actually help anyone...

that would be where someone is clearly hurt badly (neck or a break perhaps) and on the ground, and something happens in the play to cause it to move back toward that injured player lying on the ground. I've never had that happen or seen it happen, but I can see the possibility.