This Hit Caused a Concussion. It Was Also Legal. Discuss.
Last Sunday night in Seattle, in the midst of a marquee matchup, the San Francisco 49ers began marching down the field in the first quarter, trailing the Seahawks 14-0. On Seattle’s 20 on third down, quarterback Colin Kaepernick found his one-time Pro Bowl tight end, Vernon Davis, on the sideline inside the 5. After the ball arrived but before Davis could fully hold onto it, Seahawks safety Kam Chancellor jetted in and with full force used his shoulder to knock Davis’ chest, sending the ball flying irrelevantly away. Almost immediately, two yellow flags—from two nearby referees—flew in. The call: unnecessary roughness on Chancellor. The result: 10-yard penalty, first-and-ten Niners on the 10-yard-line. There are two more things to know about the play. One is that Davis sustained a concussion. Two is that Chancellor’s hit was almost certainly not against the rules. Mike Pereira, the NFL’s one-time senior director of officiating who now works as a commentator for Fox, tweeted, “The hit turns out to be legal.” Cris Collinsworth, NBC’s color commentator, was even more stark: after looking at the replay, he observed of Chancellor, “Lowered his head. Hit him with the shoulder pad. Get the head out of there. If that’s not legal I don’t know what is. I think that is outstanding defensive football.” READ MORE >>
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Roger Goodell Keeps Letting His League Down
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s pending suspensions of four players for their alleged participation in the New Orleans Saints’ “bounty” system—in which money was pooled in order to reward defenders for injury-causing hits on opponents—were overturned on appeal this afternoon. Now, the only penalties left standing are those against Saints coaches and executives and the franchise itself, which had to give up half a million dollars and draft picks. (The fans have been punished in another, indirect way: The Saints, at 5-8, have been all but mathematically eliminated from the playoffs for the first season since 2008, in no small part because they have been without suspended head coach Sean Payton.)If Goodell were seen as a mild, self-effacing servant dedicated to tidily stewarding America’s biggest sport, today’s ruling might merely be seen as a welcome correction to a well-intentioned, honest mistake. Instead, Goodell has responded to important revelations about head trauma by policing player conduct with all the zeal of Javert and none of the precision, and so this overturning can fairly be viewed as a rebuke. Moreover, given that the person doing the overturning was not some neutrally appointed outside counsel, but Paul Tagliabue—Goodell’s immediate predecessor as commissioner, who had been selected by Goodell himself to hear the appeal—the whole thing is little short of an embarrassment. READ MORE >>
