Luke Kuechly Ejected
 

Luke Kuechly ejected for personal foul penalty - NFL.com

The above "story" has a video of the incident.

To me as a non-official, this looks absolutely terrible on the part of the officiating crew. Not only did they not flag the Packers player for ripping him off the pile, they ejected him for merely breaking the hold of someone who grabbed him from behind.

Am I wrong here?

NFL pretty much has a zero tolerance policy regarding contacting an official.

Has there ever been a good zero tolerance policy?

What Kuechly did shouldn't have even been penalized much less resulted in an ejection. Let's see if the NFL head the common sense not to fine him.

Same thing happened with the Colts Erik Walden today. Official had a hold of Jermaine Gresham and Walden and Walden swiped his arm away.

I'm not sure I would say they're the same. In Kuechly's case, he was being grabbed from behind. All he did was kind of a "get off me" motion. If he'd actually initiated contact with the official (or known it was an official at all), I could see the penalty and ejection. With the way it happened, I have no idea how even a penalty was considered, much less an ejection.

I am sure he was talking to him too. I have no problem with the ejection. When the play is over, stop!!!!!

Peace

Considering the way he way ripped off the pile by a Packers player, I can't really fault him for trying to free himself from someone grabbing him from behind.

I'm not sure what you mean by "when the play is over, stop" when he appears to be walking away from the pile and only reacts to the contact initiated by the official.

Here is what I mean. Players all the time do not stop when the play is clearly over and in these piles. And I am sure the official was talking to him as well and it probably was a little more than him grabbing the player. He probably tried to get him to get away. And often these players keep going when they clearly are not any longer in the play or with the ball. High school players know how to stop. College players know how to stop. Get off the pile and get away. Now if the NFL has a problem they will say so. But until then, he could have stopped and got away and I am sure the officials was talking to him. I have no sympathy what so ever for this player.

Peace

So because in a lot of cases players behave a certain way, even though this player didn't, you think what happened is acceptable?

I dunno about you JRut but when I'm grabbed from behind I don't react well. You can't expect players to "just stop" when they are frustrated. Football is full of this type of reaction -- if the ref wades in there and gets involved he better expect that this might happen.

I dunno about you, but I work football all the time and we grab or touch players so they get off the pile. And we are usually yelling at them to get off the pile or the play is over. Now we do not grab them at my levels like they do at the NFL level, but if a player gets up in the wrong way, they could be subject to the same action, whether it is me the officials or an opponent. Once again, I have no sympathy.

Peace

Players get grabbed all the time by officials in the NFL. Officials all pro levels have an extra ability to break up fights and actions. I have seen that many times before and players stop. He didn't, so you get what you deserve. Sorry, I have no problem with the official and we do not know what he said to him or if it was only about contact. It might have been because he was a tool and his reaction made the official pull the trigger. Again, the NFL will comment if they see it as wrong and I am sure everything that took place was in the report to the league.

Peace

What reaction? He got ripped off the pile and was clearly walking away from the situation. Nothing would have happened if the official hadn't initiated contact with him. Minimal, non-malicious contact in direct response to the official grabbing a player from behind doesn't even warrant a flag, much less an ejection. Very poorly handled.

You should try to be more objective in posts, since you come off as someone who blindly defends officials in the majority of posts I've seen from you. You're defending the official using things that simply didn't happen.

Neither you or I know what was said or what he was ultimately being pulled away for. Now if you think it does not warrant a flag, then when you work your NFL games you will not throw one. That is why we are all different and why they hire some people and others are sitting at home and it has a lot to do with their judgment.

I also really do not care what you think of my opinions of officials. I have seen this kind of action for years and I almost never see a player act the way this player did. If you do not like it, that is your problem. I stand by my position on this and other things I have said. And for the record, this is not HS or college football we are talking about. The standards at the pro level is very different in all sports. You are dealing with adults, not kids or student athletes. You do not like my comments, do not read my posts. You sound like a fanboy that would complain about what the umpire did in Pat-Jets game on Thursday.

Peace

lol. Now you're dismissing me as a fanboy? I'm the one being objective here. I can't speak to the Pats-Jets game as I didn't watch it. If I thought this was handled properly by the officials, I would say so. I said out loud tonight that the two officials made a great call on the catch that Harbaugh challenged halfway through the second quarter.

I'm more of a baseball guy and am a bigger participant in baseball discussions, usually in defense of umpires against people who don't know/understand the rules. Part of being objective is being able to acknowledge when an official makes an error as well as being able to compliment a particularly good call or bit of situation handling.

In my opinion, the decision to flag and eject Kuechly here was outrageous. He had a natural reaction to being grabbed from behind, and it's debatable whether the official needed to intervene at all. My understanding of the other ejection today was that he swatted at an official's hand who was trying to guide him away from a situation. The way I've read, it seems like that would be a justifiable ejection. But I can't accurately compare the two without having seen both incidents.