To fine the players is a cop-out. The NFL demands of it's players to deliver devastating hits. Coaches want turnovers by any means necessary. Football has taught this style of play to the players as well as to the fans. Instead of changing some NFL rules or finding a way to design better football equipment, they take the easy way out and decide to fine or suspend individual players. As if the players are the problem. The players are not the problem. They NFL is the problem, but that means possible profit loss, so instead of the NFL coming together to use their heads, they take a cop out. The injuries will continue to happen, because many of the players who commit the injuries to their fellow players are not intentionally doing it. You cannot control human beings like that. The NFL has created a line so thin that anyone is bound to cross it on any given Sunday.
@Adam_Schefter More fallout: Steelers LB James Harrison was excused from practice today and his agent said Harrison is contemplating retirement. If he could go ahead and retire before week 15 that would be great.
I understand some of your points, but the reason I asked you that is because of what you said about tackling at the legs and torso. We had been taught as young players to put your facemask in the numbers and wrap up. And I know your gonna say some of these guys don't wrap up, which is true. But when you intend to put your facemask in the numbers, there are gonna be instances where your helmet moves up and hits their helmet, or you just miss and hit their helmet. There was no way Robinson could've done anything other then what he did, because it happened so fast. He was trying to separate Jackson from the ball, and it was not a helmet to helmet hit. I think Stuart Scott said it best, he said he talked to an assistant coach in the NFL about this. The coach told him that you don't have to play football, nobody is forcing you to do it. These guys get paid a lot of money, but there is a known danger to it. If you don't wanna take the risk for the fame and fortune, then don't. With that being said they should make efforts to protect the players, but this is just flat out ridiculous.
What a diva approach.. you can tackle anywhere, just not straight in the head... PS BTW I dislike Harrison so if he retires I'm just a happy man PPS BTW Meriweather hit was a lot cheaper then the two Harrison had...
Did you read his comments? He said he "has to see if he can play by NFL rules and still be effective". He's either bitching about it, or he's trying to bully the NFL out of its position. Either way, he's coming off like a dick right now.
no, he's coming off like a child. waaa, I don't think I can just tackle, so I am going to retire! the only entity he is punishing is the Steelers, but he thinks the threat will hurt the league and they will beg him to stay. nobody cares. not the league, not the other teams, and certainly not the fans of any other team. but like a child he thinks they do and the threat has merit. go ahead and fucking quit.
We'll just have to agree to disagree. When I played High School football, we were taught to put our shoulder pads into the opposing players midsection with our head to the side and wrap our arms around his legs and keep digging with our legs. Robinson was not trying to deflect the ball or tackle Jackson. He just ran into him and hit him as hard as possible. I disagree with the tactic of knocking the player off the ball. The defender should either go for the ball or tackle the player after he has possession of the ball. Robinson hit Jackson before he had control of the ball. In fact, he could have been called for pass interference.
Don't wanna keep carrying on an argument but if you were taught to tackle that way, that is just flat out strange. And Robinson wasn't trying to deflect the ball, he was trying to hit Jackson hard so that he couldn't catch the ball. That is football, and that's separating a receiver from the ball. It's been going on forever. When you say the player should go for the ball or just tackle him after he has possession, that works great in a perfect world. But this game is so fast, that sometimes it doesn't work out that way. And to suspend someone because he was a millisecond early on a legal tackle is just absurd. When I say legal I mean it wasn't helmet to helmet, I understand you feel it was early. You say Robinson hit Jackson before he had control of the ball, and that is allowed. A defender has as much right to the ball as the receiver. Ball hits his hands, bang hit him and hope it makes him drop the ball. That's the way football has been played forever.
I don't want to keep argueing the point either but I'll add this. Tedy Brusci demonstrated the proper tackling technique on TV yesterday. The way he demonstrated it was exactly the way I was taught. Brusci said that the players can learn the proper technique if they have to. Actually, I was wrong about Robinson's hit on Jackson. I looked at the replay again on Youtube. Jackson actually had possession of the ball for a split second before robinson made contact. But if you look at the replay, you will see that Jackson made no effort to tackle Jackson. He launched himself, shoulder pads first into Jackson's upper torso and head area. We'll just have to disagree about what is right or wrong. I think the League should crackdown on unnecessary violence.
http://blogs.nfl.com/2010/10/19/was-dunta-robinsons-hit-legal/ Watch the Video here on this entry. They go over all the illegal hit calls of the weekend, including the call on Leonhard. They break it down beatuifly and show why Harrison's hit on Cribbs is legal, why the one on Massiquai is the most dirty of the weekend and deserving of a fine. Why Merriweather's hit deserved a fine, and Why Robinson's hit on Jackson does not. Its not the supensions that players should be worried about, but the rulng on the Robinson hit, which was a clean football play. The Harrison hit deserves everything he got and more. I hope the crybaby retires, no one outside of Pittsburgh would care.
That's an excellent analysis, and hard to argue with any of it. Particularly liked the point at the end about offensive players reading the game - if you put yourself in a position where you're going to get hit as with the receivers running a slant route through zone coverage, don't complain when the defence gets a piece of you.
I'm very embarrassed for you after reading this. how is it a cop-out? the NFL's ruling stands to lose profit and interest by eliminating this violent aspect of the game, and yet you claim they are doing so to avoid losing profit, thus why it is a cop-out. a cop-out would just be small fines. taking a legitimate stance at the risk of its popularity and profit is suspending players.
Now Harrison is threatening retirement? Yea, until you realize you will have to return millions to the Steelers.
Well the players seem to think this is a knee jerk reaction http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-netwo...ayers-react-to-big-hits-fines?module=HP_video
