I haven't been sitting around thinking about this the past day or so, but something did occur to me.
Duque--who I respect and admire, in case that needs saying--said that NFL games shouldn't be decided by penalties, especially playoff games.
On the other hand, it's fairly inevitable.
Take that KC-Cincy game. Close game, winner goes to the Super Bowl, loser goes home. Everyone feeling the heat. Every guy on the field amped up on adrenaline (I won't speculate on whatever else they might be on).
The situation itself means that any given player is probably going to do something stupid to a lesser or greater extent. Ever get into an argument and say something you regret in the heat of the moment? Imagine gigantic guys who are going through that for a half an hour or more, but it's not an argument, it's a physical battle.
Pair that up with all of the rule changes in football over the last decade, where some penalties have been redefined to make calling an infraction easier and easier. The bar of transgression has become lower and lower. I think roughing the passer now includes calling the QB's sister dirty names, but I'm not sure. The rule changes are impossible for me to keep up with.
Put it all together (it spells M-o-t-h-e-r...) and penalties near the end of the game are a lot more likely, especially in the playoffs, especially in a close game. Meaning a penalty has a far greater chance of being committed, called, and ends up determining the outcome of the game.
We may not like it, but I don't understand how it doesn't happen more often. Whether or not a penalty "should" decide the game really doesn't matter. It's built into the game, which means it sometimes will. We either change human nature or a bunch of NFL rules so it won't.
So it goes, as Linda Ellerbee used to say.
On another topic, I wish we hadn't given up on Chad Green. Good reliever, sometimes more than good. Fare thee well, Greenie.
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8 comments:
Regarding the penalty at the end of the KC/Cin game:
I don't see how they don't call it. Both players were out of bounds by a pretty fair amount when Mahomes got pushed. It was clear cut. It was a penalty. Did it help decide the game? Yes, but...
If they don't call it then all the KC players, fans, and coaches go berserk and the
NON-CALL decides the game. To me that seems worse.
You will notice that the player who committed the penalty sat there and cried for quite a while and I felt terrible for him. But...
He wasn't mad. Wasn't protesting a "bad call". He was rightly miserable that his action cost his team a shot at the Super Bowl.
The mental side of the game is part of the game and the Cinci guy screwed up. At a crucial moment. Them's the breaks.
I had no issue whatsoever with the call.
I get the point about not wanting penalties to decide a game. In theory, I whole heartedly agree. This particular penalty, however, was so obvious that it had to be called. The defender has to be smarter and as I said yesterday use his head as well as his body to win. Doug is correct; a non-call is just as bad. Or should the last few minutes of a game be a hands off free-for-all, which surely would lead to more fighting. I guess some fans would love that
There should be a structure in place, a flexibility, that allows a penalty to be called, but not assessed in a way that decides the outcome of a game.
On nearly every play, somebody is doing something illegal. They just don't get caught. Thus, on the last play of the game - especially in a close game - the heightened scrutiny will almost always find something that was done wrong. It's just a question of whether the refs see it and call it.
This was a great game, heading into overtime. It should not have been decided by a referee's call. But it was. (And by the way, there was another, harder hit on a runner out of bounds earlier in the game, done by KC, and it was not called.)
I get what you're saying. I agree that it wasn't a terrible call. It was just a terrible way to end a game.
Duque -
"It was just a terrible way to end a game"
Absolutely!
I think they had to call it. And was the earlier violation caught? I don't know.
But you know, it occurs to me that the microscopic nature of all these replays is killing the games we love. They are shown again and again and again—often while play stops altogether and someone else, often in a city far away, looks over the play, too.
Did his hand go off the base for a split second? Did he not have absolute full and total control of the ball going all the way down onto the end zone turf?
Enough, already.
Sports aren't supposed to be for the benefit of molecular scientists. Call the play and let's go. I can't help but think that this is all being perpetrated for the purpose of:
—Extending sports broadcasts as long as possible, and thus killing the other channels' ratings.
—Pandering to the gambling public, so they will be reassured everything is on the up-and-up.
"Pandering to the gaming public" should be the NFL's new slogan.
I agree, Hoss, these frame by frame examinations of plays are deadly. To the game, to the sport, and definitely to watch. It's probably a good thing that bad calls get reversed, but good calls get reversed, too, or what looked like good calls until a single video frame shows something else. All a bit much, imo. I watch a fair amount of Alpine skiing, and the margins of victory there are infinitesimal. Makes me wonder how those events were ever called in the past. They're almost all basically ties.
i had no problem with that call. Quite clear cut.
I did have a problem, however, when Cincy was called for defensive holding on 5th down.
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