NFL officiating crews now have even more (subjective) power to determine game outcomes and—to a greater extent—a season.
The NFL and NFLPA made a joint statement Wednesday, saying players who commit three of the violations below in a season will be suspended one game:
- Hip Drop Tackle
- Horse Collar Tackle
- Launching
- Hit on a Defenseless Player
- Blindside Block
This is not a combination, from what it says. Basically, a player has to commit three blindside blocks to get the suspension, not two blindside blocks and a launch.
That said, this is extremely dangerous and subjective (not to mention
unclear) for how these penalties are checked off as strikes. It’s not clear if players need to be flagged for the strike to occur. It’s also not clear if an incorrect call made during a game is an automatic strike or is lifted the week after the game.
Hip drop tackles, horse collars, and launching are self-explanatory. Where it gets murky is the hit on a defenseless player and the blindside blocks. The former has numerous plays called incorrectly because of the speed of the game, and no fines are handed out as a result. The latter is a bit more solid, but it still leaves a lot of subjectivity in what is or isn’t a blindside block.
The bigger issue is when three egregious calls stack up on one player, and they get suspended. This is more concerning for running quarterbacks who have taken advantage of the rules in the past and can now get a player suspended by baiting them into it.
Then there’s timing. Three flags in a season is fine—problem is, what are we classifying as a season? Is it the regular season, with players having a clean slate in the playoffs? What happens if a safety has two hits on a defenseless player in the regular season, then commits it during an AFC/NFC Championship game? Are they suspended for the Super Bowl? What about regulating whether the call was correct on the field? Can we trust the NFL to vet these after the fact given what’s at stake?
Here’s another situation to consider: Let’s say an NFC East team contending for a playoff spot is playing against a down-and-out AFC team playing for a draft pick. The next game the NFC East team has is a divisional game; unfortunately, during their current game, a player commits their third penalty that season and faces suspension for the far more important game. Two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties in a game resulting in disqualification is something pretty rare, but it does happen, and it changes the course of games. Now we can change future games?
See what I’m getting at here? On paper it looks good, but how crummy would it be if a questionable defenseless-player flag came out just so the player gets suspended the following week (or two weeks later—point is, this puts too much power on the officiating crew).
Keep in mind, the NFL is trying to instigate more replay on things like this, but there still isn’t a black-and-white review system of something that now has even further consequences than 15 yards. What about players that did commit the foul and it’s clearly on the tape, but they didn’t get flagged? Do they get a freebie when they should have been racking up strikes?
To be fair, the odds of a player getting three of these distinct penalties in a single season are quite low—but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t happen. How many times have the 49ers faced a running quarterback who slid all over the place collecting 15 yards? What is Dre Greenlaw to do now?
If the NFL actually knew how to issue these calls in the first place, I wouldn’t be as skeptical. Thank goodness roughing the passer isn’t listed on here, because that would open up an entirely new can of worms.
It still has the unfortunate result of singling out players and some unlucky breaks. Just by face value, it seems like something that wasn’t thought through very well. Don’t misunderstand: all of the hits listed need to get out of the game. The problem is that the people enforcing it have shown they can’t be trusted to call anything fair and right down the middle because of the speed of the said game they are watching. Giving them the ability to get future suspensions issued (or not) seems like a massive misfire.
Before making a statement, maybe clarify exactly how this is enforced. Then again, maybe no one thought that far. This is PR. And we all know how much the NFL wants to look good while also being broken as a result.
