If the Steelers hadn’t blown leads early this season, they’d be 8-0 instead of 5-3. All their losses were close, winnable games that they let slip away. Still an L.
How did the Coyboys not even get thier D on the field and set for, not one, but TWO plays against teh Falcons? What was Rob Ryan doing? Buddy Ryan must have started spinning in his grave…and he isn’t even dead yet!
Yeah, but those are the Steelers. They deserve to lose!
How about the helmet to helmet on a defenseless receiver flag that they picked up? It was Mike Wallace, IIRC, who caught the ball and was sitting on his butt, trying to get up when the Giants’ DB led with his helmet into Wallace’s helmet. If that’s not a defenseless receiver, what is?
He was trying to get up so he could keep running.
If the receiver is concentrating on the catch itself and can’t observe or defend himself from an oncoming hit that’s one thing. However, in the play you mention he’d already caught it, looked to see where to run to and was actively trying to get to his feet so he could knock out more yardage when he was hit. I think the ‘defenseless’ application had passed and a further effort to stop him was warranted.
It was though a helmet to helmet hit. While the defender carried through with his shoulder pad and body, replay showed it was his helmet that made first contact with the receiver’s helmet. That was excessive. So all in all I saw it as not late but likely illegal.
First, he had never started running, so he couldn’t be said to “keep running.” Check the rules (see below). Second, “he was trying to get up so he could keep running” is not an exclusion to the rules regarding helmet to helmet of a defenseless player.
Not according to the rules.
The issue was never that it was late. It was that it was helmet-to-helmet on a defenselss player.
Here’s the relevant rules:
The play in question involved Wallace catching the ball by going to the ground. He clearly meets the criteria by being “on the ground” and by not having “clearly become a runner.” Since one arm was holding the ball and the other was behind him in the process of trying to get up, he also was defenseless by rule due to his being incapable of warding off or avoiding the contact.
That’s how I saw it too. Of he had been sitting there and not moving then OK, you give the guy a good shove to knock him on his ass, but if he’s in the act of getting up you hit him.
I’ll add that when I saw the repay I did say one thing HtB pointed out - the helmet to helmet contact was not at all necessary and could easily be called.
Yep, as long as it doesn’t involve "Forcibly hitting the defenseless player’s head or neck area with the helmet, facemask, forearm, or shoulder, regardless of whether the defensive player also uses his arms to tackle the defenseless player by encircling or grasping him; or
(2) Lowering the head and making forcible contact with the top/crown or forehead/”hairline” parts of the helmet against any part of the defenseless player’s body;"
How else was he supposed to hit him? Go watch the video.
Um, in any way that doesn’t involve hitting him in the helmet. Really, at that point all he had to do was push him. As he was on his ass, he would have been down by contact.
Can you link to the video?
Not from work.
The Falcons are 8-0, undefeated, the only undefeated team in pro football. I don’t know what to say. I’d be tempted to gloat, but historically, that has not been a good idea for Atlanta sports fans …
Don’t have much to add to what’s already been posted, but since the question was originally directed at me I’ll just say that, at the time, I thought it was borderline: correctly not-called as a late hit (as Wallace was trying to get up), but one of those helmet-to-helmet deals that either will or will not be made depending on the official, or his angle on the play, or his whim. Can’t find the video online after one pass, so I won’t comment on whether or to what degree Wallace did or did not qualify as a defenseless player. I guess I will point out, though, there are simply a ton of technically illegal HtH hits that the refs never consider flagging for one reason or another – for better or worse it’s very much a judgment call a lot of the time.
That’s fair enough, and I don’t dispute any of it. My problem comes from the fact that they threw a flag, and then picked it up. Someone saw it correctly, and was talked out of it. In the context of all the other truly indisputably shitty calls, it fit a pattern.
OMG!!! Did you see Troy on the sidelines? He is sooooooooo CUTE! I <3 his hair! I know he’s hurt, but do you think he can dance? My mom says I can stay out after midnight for the winter dance, and I would TOTALLY go to third base with him!!! <3!!
What? You mean this isn’t the teenage girl Steeler fan thread? Coulda fooled me.
I’ll be more inclined to gloat after winning a couple playoff games.
Speaking of teenage girls, how about that Giants run D?
It’s Atlanta. Maybe change it to winning A playoff game.