Week 5 Game Thread
- Thread starter DanoooME
- Start date
I'm also not sure that we want to encourage further ambiguity and inconsistency. Either call the rules that are on the books, or change the rules to be specific about certain times, or player positioning, which requires a call or no-call.
More importantly: Something is a foul (or not), based on whether it can be used to give an unfair advantage to one side or the other, based on how the fundamental game ought to look, and what the players ought to be trying to do / prevent the other team from doing.
A standard of "let the players decide the game" is farcical, especially to hear a trained lawyer say, when the plain meaning of that statement means "call some fouls and ignore others, according to an arbitrary standard that no two people would have the same definition of". Say what you will about the reviews on things like catch / no-catch, fumble / down-by-contact, blocking downfield, hell even DPI / OPI, at least when you slow them down and get people who know the rules talking about them, the "right answer" is usually consistent.
Holding, or other blocking fouls, are pretty much the most arbitrarily-enforced rules in sports, unless you're a fan of the carry rule in basketball. People need to decide whether those things should be legal or illegal.
More importantly: Something is a foul (or not), based on whether it can be used to give an unfair advantage to one side or the other, based on how the fundamental game ought to look, and what the players ought to be trying to do / prevent the other team from doing.
A standard of "let the players decide the game" is farcical, especially to hear a trained lawyer say, when the plain meaning of that statement means "call some fouls and ignore others, according to an arbitrary standard that no two people would have the same definition of". Say what you will about the reviews on things like catch / no-catch, fumble / down-by-contact, blocking downfield, hell even DPI / OPI, at least when you slow them down and get people who know the rules talking about them, the "right answer" is usually consistent.
Holding, or other blocking fouls, are pretty much the most arbitrarily-enforced rules in sports, unless you're a fan of the carry rule in basketball. People need to decide whether those things should be legal or illegal.
I'm not a fan of "letting the players decide" being the standard for reasons noted, but I also think that the focus should be on penalties that impact the outcome of a play or impact player safety (and obviously pre-snap penalties, unsportsmanlike conduct and the like). That's definitely a call for inconsistency on some level. But if you think the NFL generally has it right with respect what's a foul and what's not, and you also want the refs to call it exactly in accordance with the rule book, I don't see how you don't end up with games with double-digit penalties on each team every week, which would suck.
The alternative is to change what's a penalty. Personally I think if you go back to the pre-Polian illegal contact rules on receivers it would drastically improve the game (keeping the rules intended to protect defenseless receivers and penalizing hits to the head and leading with the helmet, but allowing a lot more contact beyond 5 yards). Changing that one rule back would improve the flow of the game so much if you ask me, and provide the defense with at least a little bit of a chance to stop the passing game.
The alternative is to change what's a penalty. Personally I think if you go back to the pre-Polian illegal contact rules on receivers it would drastically improve the game (keeping the rules intended to protect defenseless receivers and penalizing hits to the head and leading with the helmet, but allowing a lot more contact beyond 5 yards). Changing that one rule back would improve the flow of the game so much if you ask me, and provide the defense with at least a little bit of a chance to stop the passing game.
I agree that there IS a difference between the NFL and college games as far as the number of "ticky-tack" fouls that are called. Part of it is the rules differences: There is no illegal contact foul in college football. You can legally "chuck" a receiver all the way to the end line.
Part of it is philosophy. Most of the big time college conferences want "murder and mayhem" called and all else left alone. More generally, the yardage penalty is correlated with how stringent it should be called. 5 yarders are procedural fouls, these exist almost solely to help add credibility to the crew. If you nail the 5 yard "easy" calls the crew can get away with missing a tougher foul. 10 yards: These are advantage fouls (holding, block in the back, etc.). These should only be called when the foul puts a team at a significant disadvantage. If an O-lineman is held but wouldn't have gotten to the QB before the ball is thrown, pass on the foul. 15 yards: These are safety fouls. Call them all the time, anywhere.
The ironic part is the college philosophy comes almost entirely from old dog NFL officials, even though the current NFL philosophy is different. The NFL doesn't like explaining that a hold was passed over because it happened on the other side of the field, or because the runner got tackled before he reached the spot of the foul. They are trying to lump fouls into objective categories such as: The jersey was pulled, flag it. Hand contacted the facemask, flag it. These now become objective calls that do not need explaining. But I agree with many here, by trying to eliminate nuance the game is being hurt.
