Because of the size of both body parts. Have you ever worn a set of shoulder pads? Or at least someone wearing them up close? Much more bulk to get to the neck than the lower arm. For the shoulder pad to get to the neck, the DB would have to be wearing very thin pads, and the WR would need a facemask of almost kicker proportions.
It could still be bad, Duff. Planting my shoulder pads into your facemask would result in your head snapping back. Add to that our size and the speed of the play, and I daresay you might be hurt. (Why yes, personal experience)
Not picking at you, just using the two of us an example of the probabilities.
At a high school level, I was taught how to aim my tackles for maximum hurt for the sole purpose of creating an aura of menace around me. (Line backer and special teams) ((yeah, our coaches were jerks for that, so were we for listening))
Fear is very much a part of football. Yo…you see what I did to him?? I’m gonna do that to you too! It always has been…always will be.
Unless of course the NFL goes to tag or flag football.
Sure, Reeder, but it can go too far, imho. Case in point, the other players in general, even on our own team, were wary of us Roving Menaces. Not only did we have no regard for anyone’s personal safety (not even our own), we were hyped up on speed for the games and sometimes used steroids in our workouts (provided by the coaching staff, both roids and speed).
They finally got busted a couple of years after my graduating, but the fact remains that they groomed us as agents of violence on the football feild. I look back now and shiver wither rage as I cringe in shame.
Get rid of the potential for life altering injuries is my current mantra. As much as is possible, anyways. (No, I never changed anyone’s life with a tackle, but I do remember the horrid feeling of thinking I may have.)
As usual, ymmv, imho, e plurabis unim, etc…
I broke a friend’s collar bone playing flag football one clear Saturday afternoon. He likes to remind me of that at the oddest of times.
Still, there’s a certain dichotomy to my watching NFL football. While I love to the good, hard hits and the mind blowing plays, I shrink back and get very quiet whenever there is a serious injury on the field.
How do we come to a happy medium of good and hard yet relatively safe football? I don’t know. I’m just stating my experience, opinion, and feelings. I’ll let the specialists take care of that.
I think this would be ideal, if there was some way of guaranteeing that an injured player wasn’t faking the damage to keep a star off the field.
This would be so unlikely as to hardly be a factor into a punishment of this nature. It would be easy to diagnose and prove all but a very few injuries that could be exploited.
And I love that idea as well. As long as it can be proven under criminal law that the injury was deliberate. If juries can give a guy 5 years for aggravated assault that lands a guy in the hospital for a few days, why not some similar punishment to a colleague that ends another’s entire carreer?
(Has anyone noticed my Pits seems to either become train wrecks or deep debates? I need a better filter)
i think yesterday i mentioned how part of why he may have done it was to get his hit on SportsCenter, MNF…
Today, logging on to msn.com to read my hotmail I see this: They have all these little stories to get your attention, and there’s one entitled “Who is the NFL’s hardest hitter”. Guess who is #7???
http://msn.foxsports.com/story/3244150?GT1=5826
Because the receiver caught the ball in the air. At the moment the guy caught the ball, Darius’ arm was at the level of the ball. Less than a second later, both the receiver’s feet hit the ground, and the defender’s arm made contact, only now instead of being in line with the ball, it was in line with the neck.
It’s sort of like (but not nearly as defensible as) the situation when a guy with the ball lowers his head, and you can’t hit the guy in the head. If the defender was originally going for the torso, but all of a sudden the head is lowered and in the way, what is the defender supposed to do?
The NFL seems to feel the defender should let up the TD, because offense sells tickets. As a fan of defensive football, this attitude makes me want to puke. Last year’s Colts / Chiefs playoff game was the worst game of football I’ve ever seen in my entire life, while 6-3 battles for field position I find to be endlessly entertaining. I recognize that I’m in the minority on this one.
Still, even if Darius is given every benefit of the doubt I can manufacture, he was reckless and warranted the steep fine.
In rugby the stiff-arm tackle across the neck (I assume that’s a clothesline) is a serious offence and will generally get you both sent off and then banned.
It can break a neck.
[tangent]I for one will never forget that. Mr. Rilch and BIL insisted I come downstairs to watch the replay over and over and over again. BIL said, “That’s probably the most gruesome thing we’ll see on TV all year.” Mr. Cynical said in an MPSIMS thread, “Ed McAffrey, you’re the toughest man alive tonight.”
The date? September 10, 2001.[/tangent]