Fine and Dandy?

 Jets CBs Darrelle Revis (#24) and Drew Coleman (#30) (Picture reproduced from www.zimbio.com under Fair Use)

Flag Football

Towards the end of the first half of the Thanksgiving late game, with the Cincinnati Bengals driving to attempt to take the lead, Carson Palmer rolled out right.  With nobody open, veteran wideout Terrell Owens came back from the back of the endzone towards the goal-line, still followed by Darrelle Revis.  Palmer tossed it to Owens, off whose hands the ball ricocheted due to the attentions of Revis, the pass falling incomplete.  A split-second after the ball hit Owens, so did dime corner Drew Coleman, with a solid shoulder-to-shoulder hit.  Nothing exceptional.

Seemingly twenty seconds later, with the Bengals setting up for 3rd-and-10, a flag comes in, and Coleman is called for an "illegal hit to a defenceless receiver".  Personal foul, half the distance to the goal, automatic first down.  Two plays later, Palmer found rookie wide-out Jordan Shipley to put the Bengals up 7-3 at the half. 

James Harrison destroys Browns WR Mohamed Massaquoi in Week 6.  Harrison was later fined $75000 for this hit and another on Josh Cribbs in the same game. (Picture reproduced from www.widgetsports.com under Fair Use)

Hit Where It Hurts?

This is merely the latest in a long line of controversies surrounding what hits are and aren't legal in the NFL.  Fines have been thrown around like confetti this season, often on contentious and arguably-innocuous plays.  Steelers linebacker James Harrison threatened retirement after being fined an unprecedented $75000 for two supposedly dangerous hits against the Cleveland Browns in week six; hits that some current and former players argued were either legal or borderline, despite the fact that they led to concussions for WRs Josh Cribbs and Mohamed Massaquoi.  Just this week, Titans LB Will Witherspoon was fined $40000 for a single (if inadvertent) helmet-to-helmet shot on Donovan McNabb.

Obviously, in the context of the growing evidence of long-term brain issues caused by sports concussions, it is of paramount importance that the NFL and its commissioner Roger Goodell look out for the safety of the players who make the league what it is, especially with the topic of an extended 18-game regular season on the agenda.  However, Richard Seymour was fined just $25000 for slamming Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger to the ground and cold-cocking him in the jaw, so the punishment doesn't always seem proportionate to the crime, a fact pointed out by Witherspoon.  And when clearly-legal hits such as Coleman's on Owens are drawing game-altering penalty flags (The Jets went on to win 26-10), we really have to take a look at the direction in which the game is heading.

Harrison's (#92) hit on Cribbs (Picture reproduced from fox8.com under Fair Use)

Constistent Performance

The fact is, the modern game of American Football is played at such high speed that inevitably, even with the best of intentions, accidents and illegal/dangerous hits are going to happen.  Take, for example, the Harrison hit on Cribbs.  Harrison is coming in low to try and take Cribbs out as he hits a hole, leading with the shoulder as he should.  Cribbs lowers his head as he comes through the gap, and Harrison absolutely clatters into the receiver's helmet with both his shoulder and head.  However, what is Harrison supposed to do differently?  He is paid to stop offense.  To tackle the ball-carrier.  How can he stop that sort of contact when he's playing full-speed, all-out - how can he do his job if he's not allowed to do his job?

The answer is common sense.  You will always see cases (Seymour's punch on Roethlisberger, the hits by Patriots safety Brandon Meriweather and Falcons DB Dunta Robinson (Robinson himself was concussed in his hit) which drew $50000 fines in week 6 alongside Harrison's) where the hit was deliberately designed to hurt and be dangerous, and in obvious contravention of the rules.  There is no doubt that these cases have to be clamped down on, and hard.  Whether we do this via bigger and bigger fines, I don't know - top NFL defenders can easily earn $5m+ (Albert Haynesworth, I'm looking at you), so the money really isn't so great a deterrent; more of a symbolic gesture by the NFL.  Perhaps we should impose suspensions.  But the greatest need was summed up by Steelers SS Troy Polamalu.

 Just another play for Troy "The Tasmanian Devil" Polamalu (Picture reproduced from www.darlenegardner.com under Fair Use)

An Appealing Proposition

Polamalu, one of the hardest hitters and wildest players in the league, has suggested an appeals committee of current and former players be handed the job of reviewing retroactive punishments for these cases.  Their playing experience, he contends, puts them in a better poisition than the current 4-man executive panel to know whether the hit was deliberately dangerous or just unfortunate, and would make it so that any player wishing to dispute a fine would be able to go to a panel other than Mr Goodell and his 3 cohorts, who would have imposed the original punishment.

This writer agrees wholeheartedly with Polamalu.  Greater stability will not only give the players the confidence to play the game in the manner we love to see, it will equally stabilise the refereeing corps, hopefully avoiding ludicrous personal foul penalties such as the one on Coleman that cost the Jets points last night.  Here's hoping that common sense prevails.