Adding Insult To Injury
It’s extremely rare to have a football game when you don’t want to strangle the refs at least once but it is usually because they made a bad call in some fashion. Every once in a while, however, you want to strangle them for not having human empathy. This past Falcons/Colts game had a very good example of that.
Keanu Neal, who missed last season due to an ACL tear, was in coverage and went down seemingly no-contact (it would be revealed later he hurt his Achilles). In his frustration and heightened emotional state, he removed his helmet and threw it off to the side. In what became probably the worst feeling injury aftermath so far this season, Neal was in obvious physical pain and emotional pain. You could tell he thought his season was over and he was about as distraught as you see a player in situations like this. It was hard to watch. He was carted off the field pretty quickly, crying the whole time. It was impossible to not feel absolutely gutted for the guy.
Well, unless you are a ref!
Removing your helmet on the field of play is a personal foul. It’s a safety concern penalty, meant to reduce the chance of any injury happening to a helmet-less player. There is a logic to it. By the letter of the law, Neal technically broke the rules. But like…read the room, refs. Would anyone really have complained if there wasn’t a penalty on Neal here? It’s not like the refs are very good at keeping consistent with their calls to begin with. The guy who took his helmet off is clearly suffering and that suffering feels more important than this. His season probably just ended. Don’t spit on him as he leaves.
The other big example I can remember with this sort of heartlessness was when Bears TE Zach Miller had his career end on a horrific leg break while catching a TD. His football career died on this catch. What hurts the most about that play was just that: it was a fucking catch. That was a goddamn touchdown. He scored. His final play should have been a fucking touchdown. He almost lost his leg for that touchdown. But because the NFL doesn’t know what a catch is they ruled that Miller didn’t maintain possession of the ball throughout “the process of the catch” and the play he died for didn’t even count. I’m still furious about this play. Fuck the officiating crew that took that TD away. Even without the snap that was a touchdown.
Maybe sometimes the spirit of the game should supersede the nitty gritty technicalities.
yeah but if the spirit of the game ever took over the bookies who have the Commissioner’s office by the balls would twist.
Biggest kicker, to me at least, is the Colts fans cheering the penalty. 2nd time this year the fans have expressed themselves in an ugly way.
Those are some of the same people who claims that Unitas was a Indiana sports legend so that tells you something.
I didn’t hear any of this online. Anyone got a video of the play?
Dave linked to it in his post.
This is no longer the game I grew up with. Not for many years. Eventually, baseball will retake its throne as the top professional sport in the US. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the NFL falls below the NBA and even NHL. Hopefully, the XFL will do well enough that the NFL will have to get rid of some of these ridiculous new rules, in order to compete.
Nah no way baseball will ever claim more attention from youth than basketball. America’s long history of baseball just doesn’t apply to the modern climate, kids already grow up playing pickup basketball and practicing shots in the driveway instead of playing stickball in the neighborhood. NBA will reign supreme when the talent pool of football dries up due to players not wanting to get brain trauma.
I’m glad it doesn’t resemble the game you grew up with. That one gave players massive brain trauma, trauma that sometimes led to them living erratic lives that involved domestic violence and other horrible acts. One where coaches felt that doing things like withholding water during hot practices was “being tough” and not something insanely stupid that led to deaths of high school and even NFL players.
There are things to not like about the modern game – and the blind enforcement of this “removing the helmet” rule is definitely one of them. But if what you miss is what most people complain about – player safety rules, reduced offseason practices, etc. – well, there a ton of reasons to be glad this isn’t the NFL of old, even if it was more “entertaining” back when it was more violent.
And leading to hyper inflated offense where modern fans would start claiming today’s QBs are better than the one who actually get hit without that many flags being thrown. You’re glad must many aren’t.
I’m glad they flag leading by the helmet. That’s about the only rule they DID get right. You’re not supposed to tackle that way. You’re taught not to tackle that way throughout Pop Warner and up through college. Not until players got to the NFL did they start smashing into people helmet-first. But a lot of the other new rules are ridiculous.
Yeah that’s one of the exceptions, too bad it gets overshadowed by the ones that are practically nonsensical such as flagging a defender for being on top of a player when a tackle is made.
I think the NBA is far more primed to take the top spot in football’s absence than Baseball is. Baseball is an old person sport at this point and already lost it’s time in the sun
Eh. I think basketball will wind up slightly less popular than basketball but people have been saying for around 25 years now that it will be dead within “the next ten years”, and it hasn’t happened or even come close. I think people look at “prime” baseball games and compare those numbers to “prime” basketball/football games and think that means the sport is doomed, without realizing how regional baseball is compared to the other two. Most people only tune into their own team’s games, but they tune into them at a very consistent level, negating the concern that people don’t tune into major games not featuring their own team the way NFL fans will watch monday night football regardless of who’s playing.
The NBA is an even worse league than the NFL though. The regular season is a joke. Stars take days off whenever they want to, shoot some coaches encourage the players to take days off. Most players play at half capacity. The drama during the regular season is a lot more interesting than the sport itself to the point that it feels like reality TV sometimes. The playoffs are better now that GS doesn’t have a cheat code but I still far prefer the NFL in terms of parity, play quality, and actual on-field narratives.
Plus players couldn’t play defense as much as they can anymore due to rule changes to promote offense.
MLB still makes about twice as much money as the NBA does, yearly. It’s the second highest revenue sports league, after the NFL.
Dude baseball is an ancient sport and has no regard for time. No one cares about it until the postseason and games go on for hours.
If any sport is going to beat football it’s basketball but the NBA is not a good product. They literally have to run out WWE storylines to make the regular season semi-interesting.
I can’t watch that Zach Miller play again, but it was 100% a catch.
Refs are dicks. There’s a reason they wear the same stripes as Newcastle United.
I don’t know any under 30 baseball fans. 80% of the people I work with are 22-30.
I’m in my mid 20s working largely with people in their 20s and early 30s and know more way baseball fans than basketball or hockey fans. In a state with an NBA team but no MLB team, no less. It’s a regional thing, but in the regions it’s popular, it’s very popular.
That Zach Miller catch was really unfair. Even as a Saints fan I told my wife immediately it was a touchdown and the Bears got screwed. Then I found out how hurt he was.
Your writing about Miller reminds me of Tyler Lockette in… 2016?
He caught a pass inside the 5, and his leg broke on the tackle by the corner. His leg breaking actually caused his leg to go down at the 1 yard line. His knee didn’t even hit, it was his SHIN that touched down, that’s how brutal the injury was.
The Seahawks then proceeded to kick a field goal when they couldn’t punch it in on three straight plays.
DANNY DIMES BABY! LET’S GO
Sometimes I think Miller’s play was the point I started caring less about football in general, because that dude held on to the ball as his leg had an IRL Madden glitch, but because it was not a 100% clean catch, it was ruled incomplete.
http://www.thedrawplay.com/comic/its-time-to-place-your-bets-to-guess-who-dies/
Why Dave? Why? My optimism before the season is starting to turn into Falcoholism already.
Your first mistake was to have optimism
How about the Navarro Bowman knee injury where they didnt give him the strip fumble.
Hey Dave, did you see the Miles Killebrew hit? He damn near twisted off Miles Sanders head and the refs ignored it.
I distinctly recall a game where Asante Samuel took off his helmet after getting shook up from a big hit. Then he noticed a ref coming towards and he started groping for his helmet to avoid a penalty, but the ref was like “No, no you’re hurt. You’re not getting a flag in this situation. You do have to come off the field, though”.
DANNY DIMES BABY!
Yeah, that was a bulls**t call. I knew it was as soon as it happened. When you have something painful like that happen, some people are prone to react violently.
On a side note, I feel the need to applaud Dave for capturing the spirit of Indianapolis with the background. Most of Indiana, really.
Hey now, that’s not fair. Indiana’s flat as a board outside of the southern third or so but there’s crops and the occasional tree in the background. Sometimes a telephone pole.
Probably some Spike Lee effigy on a noose as well. You know how they know him in 1994.
Well Neal did break the rules. Does it suck? Yes, but he did break the rules. Dont blame the refs for that penalty call.
I absolutely will blame the refs for the call. Like dave said, the rule is in place for safety reasons. In this case, the play was dead. There was no danger to anyone. Why punish someone for doing nothing wrong? His actions placed no one in danger, not even himself.
It’s rare, but sometimes rules are better overlooked. Calling a penalty when someone did nothing wrong not by the letter, but by the spirit of the rule, is ridiculous.
So on top of everything else being asked of them, now the refs need to be situationally aware of any special emotional circumstances for players that they may or may not be aware are injured? Seriously?
The rules are the rules because they are the rules. If a player commits PI but breaks his leg while doing so, should he not be flagged because he was hurt on the play? What level of emotional duress do the refs need to be aware of so they can appropriately coddle the players?
This is a giant pile of coiled slinkies in the closet. You cannot open it. Not a crack, not an inch. If it feels wrong to penalize a guy for breaking a rule because he’s injured, then the committee can go and determine if that flag should be called on injured guys in the future.
I’m with TargetToad. Don’t blame the refs for this. It’s not like they don’t already have jackasses like Tom Brady breathing down their neck and constant oversight from people screaming for their heads everytime human error comes into the picture. Their job needs to be as OBJECTIVE as possible. Pulling in the SUBJECTIVE needs of the variously possible injuries going on at a given point in time is just absolutely not going to make things better. AT ALL.
Also, what kind of player wants a Pity Award? “Well, I didn’t score a touchdown, but since I broke my leg, they gave it to me anyway! Even though I didn’t deserve it!” Go ask Michael Strahan how he feels about the sack record. I’ll wait here.
please tell me more about the “objectivity” of targeting and pass interference
of course were not asking the refs to take the fucking feelings of the players into consideration, jfc. great fuckin strawman tho, yeah you beat the shit out of that one
were questioning the wisdom of throwing a flag for an action that didnt hurt anyone, didnt impede the flow or affect the outcome of the game, and literally didnt impact the game at all. the thrown flag did more to change the trajectory of the game than the thing the flag was thrown for
honestly tho i wont wait here because this convo is fucking stupid
If you don’t think there are objective things the refs are looking for in regards to penalties (note: I said their job is to be as objective “as possible”), then I don’t know what game you’re watching. They’re looking at players’ hands, their feet, was the ball batted at the line, etc. The goal is always to be as objective “as possible”. It doesn’t mean they always succeed, but that is the GOAL.
You can call it a strawman all you want, but I’ll point to Dave’s exact words (and overall sentiment): “The guy who took his helmet off is clearly suffering and that suffering feels more important than this.”
Translation: “The player feels sad because his gut tells him his season just ended (something the ref won’t be able to determine when the flag is thrown). Take that into consideration before tossing a flag.”
Anyway, thanks so much for your open mind, patience, and dedication to the craft of promoting healthy conversation on the internet. It’s very much appreciated, guy!
I think overall though you and toad still kinda missed the point. The Refs are supposed to look for things objectively, and make calls objectively according to the rules…but that is an ideal world that doesn’t exist.
The refs do more than just look for objective rule breaks. They control the tempo of the game, and throwing the flag for rule breaks is their subjective decision. They can decide a transgression wasn’t worthy of a flag or not, and sometimes they call a lot of penalties because the two teams are being chippy and they need to try and scare them. They do this literally all the time. Why do people always joke that they could call holding every play? Because they honestly could. The Seahawks Legion of Boom adopted a playstyle that literally exploited the refs subjective decisions to throw flags. They could have been called for PI so, so much more frequently than they actually were. The refs could have called them all, but that would have also have pissed everyone off, and the Hawks were very good at doing it just legally enough to work it. It helped that PI is notoriously subjective and hard to call.
The preseason is always full of penalty “testing”. New rules get flagged and enforced a lot more than usual, in order to ingrain it into the players and set precedent. That’s not really an objective move. Haven’t you also noticed the trend of how refs tend to “let the players play” more during the playoffs than during the regular season? Are penalties being committed less? Not really. They are just aware that it hurts the product and are likely told to hold their whistles a bit. That literally backfired last season with the Saints no-call.
Refs do more than just look for transgressions. Make-up calls are a running joke because they actually happen. Last week, Tom Brady chastised the refs for calling too much holding on twitter. This weekend, much fewer holding calls got made. I 100% guarantee you it was because the league told the ref union to slow down the holding calls because it was bothering people.
So yeah. This incident with Keanu Neal, even if it was technically a rule break, is a douche move. The helmet removal didn’t affect the game at all and just added insult to injury. The flag wasn’t necessary and nobody would have been upset if it wasn’t called. Context matters.
You make some good points, Dave, although I don’t think flowing the flag on a flaggable offense is a douche move. And I know I’m still talking about an ideal situation, but in terms of training and holding them accountable, I think you always HAVE to aim for / prepare for the ideal scenario. Yes, they control the tempo of the game. Yes, sometimes they don’t see exactly what happened, and a subjective call needs to be made. But the way you want them to do it whenever and however possible is by making factual observations. The chippiness of a team can be determined with objective observations. “They’re doing after the whistle. They’re overly grabby, etc, shoving a lot, yada yada.”
I think the massive fluctuations in calls speaks to this. It’s really really hard to dial into that level of nuance and make calls while evaluating the context of any given situation at the speed the game is played at. They’re probably making objective recalculations. “Ok, guys, a touch is ok, but a full on finger-closed grab is no dice.” You can’t just say “Tone it down” and expect good results. They need tangible direction for it to happen. Which a rules change would provide.
I fenced in college, and during practices we would have to play ref and make judgment calls about who did what and whether it was legal. Did Joe parry Frank’s point before lunging? Who had the right of way for simultaneous hits, etc.. Fencing is a far far easier thing to ref for, because you’re only watching two people, they’re always right in front of you, and yet taking in all of that visual information and turning it into a call in real-time… it’s really really hard. It took me a year and a half to become “slightly less than competent” at it.
And given how much of a difficult operation reffing for the NFL already is, I think what you’re asking for is just putting too much additional information processing on an already-stressed system. If we don’t want to penalize injured players after a play is dead and no impact was made, then change the rule. The refs can still throw out the flag if they aren’t aware a player has been injured, and then the league office can chime in with, “Oh hey guys, someone got hurt on that play, no penalty.”
Context does matter, and I think part of the issue is the refs have enough on their plate to wrestle with, and asking them to then turn around and make situational alignments on top of everything else is a very tall order. They shouldn’t have loose cannons feeling sorry for an injured guy and holding onto a flag that should normally be thrown. Because ultimately, it’s their asses on the line if they fuck it up.