Can offens grab facemask
 

BB guy. Watching ESPN Monday nite and they show Steve Smith of Ravens stiff arm defender and then pulling him to to the ground via the face mask. Can offense use the face mask?

Both the offense and defense have the same rules in regard to facemask in the NFL. It's not a penalty simply to grab the facemask. It only becomes a penalty when they fail to release immediately and controls the opponent or grabs and pulls, twists, push, or pull the facemask.

Saying that, I haven't seen the play in question so can't comment.

I'll post some screen grabs tomorrow. IMHO, with an official looking right at it nothing was called. What got me was the ESPN twits.

I can count on one fist the number of times I've seen a ball carrier flagged for grabbing an opponent's facemask.

Can't speak for NFL rules, but otherwise NFHS 9-4-3-h prohibits "grasping an opponents facemask", and applies to EVERY player.

Can't get a pic uploaded due to 100kb limit so you will have to go here to see pics: Laredo Optimist LL Baseball: Albums

Click on the "football" album

Can't see any "grasping" in any of these photos.

You would have to see the video to understand that the impetus for the defenders trajectory derived from the runners arm, wherever it was attached to, benefit of the doubt, horse collar, otherwise facemask?

I have seen the video. There's no grasping here, not once. "impetus for the defenders trajectory derived from the runners arm"????? That has nothing to do with anything at all. (And merely saying the term "horse collar" in the context of this play, where contact was entirely from the front, is particularly worrisome).

Don't know which rule code your suggesting, but you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear under ANY of them.

I've called it twice. Can't grasp the facemask, period.

Here's where I think the disconnect lies. We are not supposed to guess why a player's head jerks around or how he suddenly and violently is yanked back to the ground. In these plays, if we don't know, we don't throw (or shouldn't anyways).

Many times guessing on facemasks and horsecollars result in an incorrect foul being called. This is a concept a fair amount of coaches don't seem to grasp and can't believe that we missed an "obvious" facemask.

I'm a BB guy so I ignorantly used that term to refer to grabbing the front of the shoulder pads. So, without solid evidence of why the defender is going down no official will call it a facemask. Makes sense. Thanks.

Players grab each other all the time. Defenders go down all the time. It's football.

Ball carriers will often stiff-arm a defender on his face without grasping it.