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Targeting/Pussification of football

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Buckeyeskickbuttocks said:
Maybe just get a motherfucker who can see the obvious? The targeting call on Jones this week was absolute horse[Mark May]. Also, if targeting cannot be confirmed then it should not stand. The call this weekend was not confirmed, it stood as called. Which is fucking bull[Mark May].
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I can dig it. But if the calls need to be confirmed to be targeting, what's to stop the replay officials from just determining that they're confirmed, instead of "the call stands"?

More of an in-general observation, why does it matter if a call is "confirmed" or it "stands"? I know the difference, but there's really no difference.

Back to targeting, the rule isn't going away, and that's a shame. It's not that I dislike the rule - I know that there needs to be a rule to protect the players as best as possible. If the players are going to be considered "student athletes", then we need to treat them as such. But I hate the overall inconsistency of the rule. I'm not going to go on a Penn State cult-like rant about a conspiracy, but how many times have Ohio State opponents been called for targeting? I can't think of any. 1? Maybe? I can't think of any. How many times has Ohio State been called? I can think of 5 pretty quickly - so it's probably 8 or 12 times.

The refs need to look at the intent. You aren't going to convince me that Bose was trying to hit Stanley on the head. It should have been a late hit, at worst. (And I've seen later hits than that not get called.) Or Jones's hit this weekend. I think if you get an ejection, the other team should get to choose whether you truly get ejected. If not, keep the 15-yard penalty, and the player is allowed to keep playing. But if they choose to have you ejected, no 15-yard penalty, and that player should get a free hit on the opposing player he hit.
 
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Zurp said:
I can dig it. But if the calls need to be confirmed to be targeting, what's to stop the replay officials from just determining that they're confirmed, instead of "the call stands"?

More of an in-general observation, why does it matter if a call is "confirmed" or it "stands"? I know the difference, but there's really no difference.
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Well, I would hope the replay official would call what he sees and not just speak words to protect the rest of the crew. I do believe there is a specific difference between "call stands" and "confirmed" Stands as called means "we didn't see enough to rule one way or the other" whereas, Confirmed means "Yep. That's what happened" The call on Jones, it was clear there was no head to head and it was clear that Jones did not use his head as a weapon, he had his eyes up, for fuck's sake. This was clear at speed, and it was blatant on slo mo.

The reason I think you have to confirm to eject is... well.. because we're talking about ejecting a player. If you're gonna kick a player out of the game, you'd better make damn sure he did the crime, as it were.

Back to targeting, the rule isn't going away, and that's a shame. It's not that I dislike the rule - I know that there needs to be a rule to protect the players as best as possible. If the players are going to be considered "student athletes", then we need to treat them as such. But I hate the overall inconsistency of the rule. I'm not going to go on a Penn State cult-like rant about a conspiracy, but how many times have Ohio State opponents been called for targeting? I can't think of any. 1? Maybe? I can't think of any. How many times has Ohio State been called? I can think of 5 pretty quickly - so it's probably 8 or 12 times.

The refs need to look at the intent. You aren't going to convince me that Bose was trying to hit Stanley on the head. It should have been a late hit, at worst. (And I've seen later hits than that not get called.) Or Jones's hit this weekend. I think if you get an ejection, the other team should get to choose whether you truly get ejected. If not, keep the 15-yard penalty, and the player is allowed to keep playing. But if they choose to have you ejected, no 15-yard penalty, and that player should get a free hit on the opposing player he hit.
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I agree that the rule, in terms of player safety is a good rule to have. The enforcement of it has been bad. The flag they threw on Sheffield was a good example of what's wrong with the enforcement... that was a "Oh! he hit him really hard" flag. Well, you're allowed to hit really hard. Other than that, it was fucking textbook.... and a flag comes out... well, at least they picked that one up.... But it was a shit flag in the first place.

I too would be interested to see how many times it's been called against an opponent, because I can't recall any off the top of my head.
 
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Buckeyeskickbuttocks said:
Well, I would hope the replay official would call what he sees and not just speak words to protect the rest of the crew. I do believe there is a specific difference between "call stands" and "confirmed" Stands as called means "we didn't see enough to rule one way or the other" whereas, Confirmed means "Yep. That's what happened" The call on Jones, it was clear there was no head to head and it was clear that Jones did not use his head as a weapon, he had his eyes up, for fuck's sake. This was clear at speed, and it was blatant on slo mo.
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I think the problem here is, they are treating it like a regular call where you defer to the call on the field unless you see clear evidence to the contrary. I take issue with that for the simple reason that these guys are throwing the flag and calling targeting if there's any doubt. So, if they're chucking the flag and letting replay sort it out, then do that. Especially if they're reviewing all of them... so... I don't know what the "level of evidence" should be, maybe just preponderance on the replay... but since you're ejecting the guy, maybe it SHOULD be "confirmed" -- but seems like as the case with Jones, confirmed needs some defining. (Its my opinion that the QB's head getting hit by Lewis secondarily influenced the confirmed there. Which is BS)
 
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AKAK said:
I think the problem here is, they are treating it like a regular call where you defer to the call on the field unless you see clear evidence to the contrary. I take issue with that for the simple reason that these guys are throwing the flag and calling targeting if there's any doubt. So, if they're chucking the flag and letting replay sort it out, then do that. Especially if they're reviewing all of them... so... I don't know what the "level of evidence" should be, maybe just preponderance on the replay... but since you're ejecting the guy, maybe it SHOULD be "confirmed" -- but seems like as the case with Jones, confirmed needs some defining. (Its my opinion that the QB's head getting hit by Lewis secondarily influenced the confirmed there. Which is BS)
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I suppose the other thing that bothers me, and perhaps this goes towards the "intent" component mentioned earlier... they are wearing helmets for a reason. That reason is, of course, to protect the head from contact because.. you know.. football is a contact sport and .. because your head is attached to your body, sometimes it's gonna get hit too. I'm being kind of glib, but my point is - head to head contact is going to happen from time to time. That's why they wear helmets! I think teeing off on a guy should absolutely draw a flag, and even an ejection.. but.. like Bosa's flag against Iowa... while it was - by definition - targeting, it was pretty mickey mouse. Which is to say, I'm quite sure the helmet did it's job there. I don't think Jones ever made contact with Lewerkie's head and if there was, well.. that's why they have helmets on.... it's a contact sport.
 
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Buckeyeskickbuttocks said:
I do believe there is a specific difference between "call stands" and "confirmed" Stands as called means "we didn't see enough to rule one way or the other" whereas, Confirmed means "Yep. That's what happened"
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Again, I understand that. But it's all the same at the end. I'm going off-topic with this, but say the runner reaches the ball over the endline, in an attempt to get a touchdown. He fumbles it. Did he score before fumbling? Did he fumble before scoring? The call on the field is touchdown. Does it REALLY matter if the call on the field is confirmed or that it stands? I don't think so. Yet I've heard announcers (no link) say stuff like, "Wow! The call was confirmed!!!" Who really cares?

Now, sorry for being off-topic. Back to the targeting rule, I like your idea: maybe the ref on the field should throw a flag for the 15-yards when there's any doubt. Then it goes up to the replay booth for review. There shouldn't be any overturned/stands as called/confirmed ruling. Just a yes/no ruling. And if you can't tell on the replay, then it shouldn't be targeting. And, again, intent should be a big part. The circumstances of the hit should also play a role. Was the ball under-thrown, and that's why the receiver ducked his head? The defender may have been going for his body, but the receiver ducked his head and got hit. Nothing the defender could do. The replay booth should be looking at the play and ask, "should the defender be ejected for this hit?" Not "does it meet a list of stupid criteria made up by a bunch of suits in a conference room?"
 
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Buckeyeskickbuttocks said:
Maybe just get a motherfucker who can see the obvious? The targeting call on Jones this week was absolute horse[Mark May]. Also, if targeting cannot be confirmed then it should not stand. The call this weekend was not confirmed, it stood as called. Which is fucking bull[Mark May].
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Or maybe better, start fining/suspending replay officials who fuck up obvious calls. I've re-watched the game three times, and as such have seen the replay of the hit about a dozen times and it wasn't even close to targeting. There was zero, zero contact with the head/neck area and Jones did not lead with the crown of his helmet. Field officials can be given a pass for bang-bang plays, but there is no reason for a replay official to fuck shit up.
 
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Buckeyeskickbuttocks said:
I suppose the other thing that bothers me, and perhaps this goes towards the "intent" component mentioned earlier... they are wearing helmets for a reason. That reason is, of course, to protect the head from contact because.. you know.. football is a contact sport and .. because your head is attached to your body, sometimes it's gonna get hit too. I'm being kind of glib, but my point is - head to head contact is going to happen from time to time. That's why they wear helmets! I think teeing off on a guy should absolutely draw a flag, and even an ejection.. but.. like Bosa's flag against Iowa... while it was - by definition - targeting, it was pretty mickey mouse. Which is to say, I'm quite sure the helmet did it's job there. I don't think Jones ever made contact with Lewerkie's head and if there was, well.. that's why they have helmets on.... it's a contact sport.
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Well, the Jones one was especially bad since of the 3 components that comprise targeting (to my feeble understanding) only one was fulfilled clearly. (Lewerke was defenseless) But it seems like Jones didn't hit him in the head or neck, nor did he give a clear indicator... like a launch, maybe he had a little forward thrust... but, it certainly wasn't clear by any means. Now, Lewis did hit him in the head as a result of the collision with Jones, and I still think that colored the perception of the play.

At any rate.... the real problem I had with the overall call was it seems to me that Jones hit wasn't any worse than the blind side block on (I think it was) Hubbard, which I think was the same play Arnette got dinged up.
 
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I think the targeting rule needs to go completely, unless it is CLEARLY a purposely malicious hit.

Too many times the defense gets a bad beat and ejected because a ball carrier basically ducks right into a bad collision in a bang bang moment......what are you supposed to do as a defender on a bang bang play like that? Just stop suddenly?

Major problem as well is that it's not called in a consistent matter in any way at all.........You could probably find multiple worse hits than the Jones hit on Saturday that went totally uncalled, let alone got someone ejected.
 
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AKAK said:
At any rate.... the real problem I had with the overall call was it seems to me that Jones hit wasn't any worse than the blind side block on (I think it was) Hubbard, which I think was the same play Arnette got dinged up.
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The blindside block on Hubbard reminded me of a block by one of our WRs a couple seasons ago in the Big Ten championship game and it resulted in a 15 yard penalty. I cannot think why the Sparty guy was not penalized because Hubbard was defenseless and the hit was totally uncalled for. Talking about making rules to keep players safer and they allow blindside hits like that is just plain ridiculous.

On another note, I read were Coach Meyer said that he was fine, unlike me, with the targeting rule as it stands now.
 
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LitlBuck said:
On another note, I read were Coach Meyer said that he was fine, unlike me, with the targeting rule as it stands now.
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The rule itself is fine...it's the interpretation and enforcement of it that is fucked up. And as BkB stated above, targeting should only be confirmed to enforce it...no "stands" horseshit. If it is not definitively targeting, then it should not be enforced.
 
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