NFL 2014 Season Week 9 Picks

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The crew that officiated the Redskins-Vikings game and thus threw the pretty awful unnecessary roughness flag on Harrison Smith has called more than twice the NFL per-game average for unecessary roughness penalties. In their weak weak weak defense, the lead-up to the play had all the makings of a penalty, and even in realtime it isn't impossible to think that Harrison clocked RG3 (or that the 2 seconds leading up to the slide would have logically resulted in a hit on a sliding quarterback). However, refs really should get their crap together and ask themselves "did anyone actually see Smith make contact with RG3?" Because there was virtually no contact made at all, and it can in large part be attributed to a late slide by RG3. This league.

There, throwing a bone to my Vikings counterparts.

I didn't even realize until after the game that Harrison actually "barely touched" him. I still thought it was total BS. Or, even if not "BS", a rule that needs to change asap.

From our angle in live action it did look like Harrison actually hit him, but it was the ultimate "what else was he supposed to do?" moments. You had RG3, a guy who had earlier escaped a dead-to-rights sack, running out wide on a play where the first down was HALF A YARD beyond the line of scrimmage. In other words, it's the kind of distance where a guy doesn't even have to "get by you" to get by you. Then, at the last second, RG3 goes down. Maybe he decided he was screwed and it was a conscious attempt to draw the flag. Maybe it was because that was the most natural way for an oft injured guy to roll with an inevitable hit on a play that was over, and the fact that he ended up in a position that is meaningful in football was sheer happenstance.

It really doesn't matter, because either way the rule needs to be clarified and altered. A behind the line of scrimmage QB, who has given up his qb-ness no less via the run-option, should not be able to use a rule designed to protect them as a tool to get more yards, and maybe a position that is perfectly natural to "wind up in" in certain circumstances shouldn't be the signal. If the defender has already made his "move" then you shouldn't be allowed to slide under him and get a penalty. I suppose you could say the NBA has fouls like this all the time, and it's the defender's fault for diving, but I think the NFL needs to be allowed to be more chaotic than that.

No matter what it's cheap, and it chips away at the actual intent of the rule. The defender may as well take the chance to ef you up if the flag is coming either way. How long before RG3 is "faking" the slide, and then getting the half a yard he needs because of it?

Here's Kevin Seifert's take on the play.

Smith lowered his right shoulder to initiate contact, and Steratore penalized him for "a blow to a sliding quarterback's head," according to the post-play announcement. There are several factors to unpack here...Was Griffin still considered a quarterback by rule at the end of the play? And what, if any, protection did the slide afford him?

First, the NFL confirmed last season that a quarterback running the read-option loses his "quarterback protection" and can be hit as if he were a running back. So it is difficult to understand why Steratore referred to a "sliding quarterback" when the league doesn't consider him one on that play.

Further in article, he says that it actually is spelled out in the rule that this sliding feet first protection isn't just granted to quarterbacks. So had Smith made the devastating that the ref thought he had made, the call might have a been justified, aside from the fact that RG3's slide might have been late and thus Smith was hard-pressed to do much of anything to stop his already executed decision hitting RG3.

Gene Steratore is from Pittsburgh.

This is totally meaningless to the conversation at hand, I just like to say it.

I think the rule should apply differently behind the line and in traffic than, say, after a first down.

I know at first blush this is going to sound stupid because the whole rule exists to avoid hits, but you shouldn't be allowed to do this just to avoid an inevitable hit. The concept of "giving yourself up" only even makes sense in the context of choosing to be down when being down there wasn't an inevitability. Maybe that would be too hard to parse, and in most cases that's a bad thing. Perhaps the rule just needs to go. You already have a way to avoid a hit (going to a knee) and while that takes more "space" to be able to come to a stop, and kneel, maybe that's a good thing. Almost by definition that would allow for give ups in situations where you're giving up, but not allow give ups in the cases where you're .002 seconds from getting decked. It's not like these slides are totally safe either.

Either way I don't think this rule should apply behind the line of scrimmage, or within a yard of the line of gain. Behind the line is too chaotic, and way too hard to parse if it was intentional, or if the player just happened to "roll with the punches" and wind up in a position that was meaningful penalty wise.

Too near the line of scrimmage and guys are going to be working too hard to do anything they can do to stop a guy, or make it clear where he was stopped. Sure the ball is supposed to be spotted where the player started their give up, but if a defender dives in there so there's no doubt the ball/player never made it over the line of gain, then there's little doubt where to spot it.