I’m with flv on this one... all horse collar tackles should be fined. Period. It needs to get out of the game.
That horse collar tackle on Kupp ticked me off...
How, in live time action, can a ref decide between unintentional and intentional? Plus, where can they draw the line in an instant? Answer to both is, they can't. So it is what it is, like it or not. It's the rule not the referee.
The entire purpose for the horse collar rule was to prevent injury. When it was first brought in it was to prevent defenders from reaching in and dragging the player from behind. It was NOT so that the refs had another thing to look for in order to be able to get their yellow hanky some air time.
The problem is that many of these rules are being called for really NO reason. The ref had to look to see that Suh had reached inside the pads. It wasn’t that Suh made a move that overtly had the potential to injur. It was basically a tackle.
We saw AD get blocked down and because he didn’t just give up, he gets a flag. We saw Ziggy actually go at Goff’s knees with no flag.
The NFL needs to knock off the bullshit of making rules, puffing their chest out and acting like they are actively preventing injuries.
A rule is only as good as its enforcement. The NFL needs to take the end goal of a rule and insist that the refs are working toward that goal. Is it to prevent defenders from going after a QBs knees? Is it simply to protect a QBs knees? Is the rule to prevent injury from being pulled down in a manor that is known to cause injury(horse collar)? Is the rule to prevent concussion? Is the rule to prevent players from leading with their head due to injurious results?
These are all things that the refs are fully capable of ruling on and where the NFL is fully capable of calling in the booth in the rare occasion where it is warranted.
But issuing a fine for tackles like Suh’s simply because it sneaks into a category is actually counter productive. It does nothing - ZERO - to enforce and lead to their end goal.
Intent? Bad technique? Carelessness? Does anyone really care if a player is injured? Refs shouldn’t be there to decide intent when it comes to rules. They can always throw an unsportsmanlike flag for intent or action they know to be unsportsmanlike. They need to watch how a play lends toward the end goal. Did the player go after the knees or play in such a way that he put the knees in danger? Did the defender use the pads to drag the player down by his neck?
Is $20k a big deal to Suh? I don’t know. Probably. Did it do anything toward teaching proper technique or the goal of preventing horse collar related injuries? Not in my opinion.
If you don’t have an end goal, don’t make a rule. And to me, the NFL’s only end goal with many of these rules is to stand there in a court and SAY they care.
