NFL referees are driving me bat [droppings] with the incessant, awful unnecessary roughness calls.  These refs need to heed Jerry Glanville's advice... "This is the NFL.. That stands for Not For Long if you keep making calls like that". Seriously, some of these refs are making calls that refs in the Rob's Delicatessen Flag Football League wouldn't make, and the worst part is, the NFL encourages most of these calls because of their "points of emphasis" philosphy about penalties.  To help you better understand where I’m coming from, here is just one example from a game I watched recently and the impact that one of these calls can have on a game.  
In the Giants v. Chiefs game a couple weeks back (the game in which the Chiefs tackled like my 7 year old sisters - I referenced this game in one of my earlier blogs) the Giants had a 1st and 10 on their own 29 yard line to begin the 4th quarter.  Eli Manning threw a screen pass to Tiki Barber which was sniffed out beautifully by Derrick Johnson who came up to make the tackle holding the Giants to a minimal gain.  However, as Derrick Johnson had Tiki wrapped up, the whistle blew and instantaneously Johnson stopped driving his legs, but the momentum carried both players down.  Now when I say instantaneously is when Johnson stopped, I mean instantaneously (think an ex-con who was granted parole after 30 years in the slammer on his first night home with his wife).  When the players hit the ground, a flag was thrown, and I thought to myself, this has to be holding or something, this cannot possibly be unnecessary roughness; but indeed it was the old unsportsmanlike, U.R.  I cannot stress enough how bad of a call this was, for Derrick to have stopped his momentum and not brought Tiki and himself down would have been something even Stephen Hawking couldn’t comprehend.  After that call, the Giants, now with great field position on the 46-yd line, send Tiki Barber off tackle for a nice gain of 20 yards.  Now the Giants have gone from their own 29 to the Chiefs’ 34 with one 20 yard run.  The Giants followed that up with another run by Tiki, this time for three yards, and after that is when Amani Toomer caught his TD pass as a result of some awful tackling my Sammy Knight and the gang.  
Before that penalty, the Chiefs defense seemed to have found a comfort level.  After letting Tiki score that long TD early in the game, the Chiefs’ D held the Giants to two field goals, while picking off Eli Manning once and having Larry Johnson score a touchdown of his own.  The score when Derrick Johnson made his play was a very manageable 13-10 in favor of the Giants, after this debacle, the score was 20-10. This call clearly gave the Giants momentum and it looked, even before the Toomer touchdown, as if it took a little wind out of the sails of the Chiefs D who were starting to get into a groove.  In short, this call did to the complexity of the Giants/Chiefs game what plastic surgery did to the complexity of Michael Jackson’s skin; and in a game with as much on the line as there was here, a preventable call such as this should simply not have been made. 

However, this pales in comparison to some of the calls that are made with respect to roughing the passer.  I understand that the quarterback has to be protected for the most part, but let us not forget that these are grown men who have been playing football for ages; we don’t need the refs to treat every quarterback like a little girl who has just been through a harrowing kidnapping experience.  Anybody who has watched the NFL regularly this season surely knows what I’m talking about.  Two examples from the last two Patriots games I watched should provide a little reminder incase you folks forgot.  Against Tampa Bay, Richard Seymour broke through the offensive line and tipped a Chris Simms pass in the air, and after the ball was tipped, the arm that tipped it touched Chris Simms’ shoulder pad/helmet on the way down.  For an idea of the vicious nature of the impact Richard Seymour’s arm had on Simms, think of the monstrous thud of a mother’s hand on a baby’s back while she's burping him/her.  Not only did Simms not fall over from this, it didn’t look like he even knew he had been hit.  And in the very next game, Monday night’s game against the Jets, Seymour again got pressure on the quarterback and sacked Brooks Bollinger on what looked like a clean play.  However, while Seymour was down in perfect form-tackling position with his head and shoulder pads ready to move through Bollinger’s chest, Mr. Bollinger put his head down to brace for impact and there was some helmet to helmet contact.  Apparently, the refs viewed this as some sort of malicious attempt on Seymour’s part to send Bollinger a little helmet to helmet message.  I’m sure Seymour planned the sack to happen just like it did.  

It’s only a matter of time before a huge game in the playoffs is determined by a penalty like this.  I can see it now: Peyton Manning and the Colts, down by 6 to the Bengals in the AFC playoffs, have the ball on the Bengals’ 40 yd. on a 4th and 9 with 30 seconds to go.  Peyton drops back and is being pressured, Justin Smith gets to him just as he gets the ball off, incomplete pass, but there’s a flag!  Justin Smith hit Peyton the wrong way, the crown of his helmet touched Peyton’s facemask and he hit him a split second after Peyton got the ball off; “unsporsmanlike conduct, roughing the passer, number 90, defense, 15 yard penalty, first down”  The next play the Colts score a TD on their way to Ford Field for a nice victory in Super Bowl XL.  

I can understand certain unnecessary roughness calls to a degree (i.e. Donovin Darius murdering Robert Ferguson over the middle on a somewhat unnecessary play a season or two back), but the preceding examples (including the Derrick Johnson play) are not examples of unnecessary roughness.  On the contrary, they are examples of NECESSARY ROUGHNESS (somewhere, Scott Bakula is smiling).  Necessary roughness in football should not solely be considered the tackles and the battles in the trenches that are commonplace during a game; it should also be considered as the incidents during a game in which a little extra physicality is added onto the already very physical nature of the game of football (including an event in which a player carries another player down with their momentum because they were trying to make a play).  When a player goes to hit another player, they should not have to think about the consequences of hitting them in a certain fashion, they should be allowed to do everything in their power to get in their opponent’s head and win the game.  However it seems that the NFL and the refs do not want that to be the case (unlike Scott Bakula, somewhere Olivia “Let‘s Get Physical“ Newton John is weeping as a result of these calls).  

I distinctly remember Bryce Paup striking fear into the hearts of offenses (and particularly quarterbacks) all over the league because of his all-out style of play with the Packers, Bills, and Jags.  Bryce had some of the most vicious hits on QB’s I have ever seen and some of them happened to be helmet to helmet.  He was fined several times, and I believe that he is actually one of the main reasons that this penalty has been made a major point of emphasis.  When Bryce made those hits, there were not even flags thrown, because, take a deep breath people, a defensive player hitting a quarterback wasn’t a penalty.  Instead, his fines were actually a result of the league office looking at tapes after the quarterbacks that he hurt were injured and concussed.  Looking back, it actually seems like those fines were almost like the league acting as the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, giving the QB‘s a pat on the back, telling them, “get better, we have this situation under control, he won‘t bother you anymore.”  Although he was fined all those times, he continued to play the way he knew how, and as a result it sent him to the Pro Bowl 4 times, helped his team’s defense become even more intimidating, and played a key role in many victories over the years.  I respect him greatly for that (I still remember an interview when they showed him some tapes of the hits he was fined for and he distinctly said he saw nothing wrong with that and wishes he could hit like that all the time - who wouldn’t want a player like that on their team).  Even in the case of Donovin Darius that I mentioned earlier, the man is playing football the way he knows how to play, he is being physical and intimidating his opposition, sending a message to any WR’s that might think of coming over the middle into his territory.  Rodney Harrison is another player who has always been notorious for the “dirty” hits on “defenseless” receivers over the middle (Are they really as defenseless as anybody else on the field?  What about the nice folks who hold the down markers on the sidelines during games?  When they get hit, that‘s unnecessary roughness, but there is no penalty for that.  If you‘re a receiver going over the middle, any roughness that may ensue is very necessary, and I‘m quite sure they are prepared.).  Remember when Rodney annihilated Jerry Rice over the middle that one time?  With the fines he incurred from the league ($111,764 -- 1/17th of his base salary for the season) one would have thought Rodney pimp slapped the President.  However, Rodney, the NFL equivalent of Mark Cuban (the only similarity is the amount of fines these two rack up - please don't think I am equating Rodney to Cuban in any other way), also never stops playing the way he knows how, and over the years he has helped his teams to three super bowls appearances, with two rings to show for it. 

I’m positive that Jack Tatum, Ronnie Lott, Fred “The Hammer” Williamson, Deacon Jones (these two men had signature moves to punish their opponents and win for crying out loud; and both moves, involving arm to the head action, were banned) Mean Joe Greene (as well as Jack Ham, Jack Lambert, and Mel Blount) and countless others are right with me on this issue, and they probably have stronger feelings.  With the horse collar tackle now being a penalty, and anything remotely near a helmet to helmet hit being called as well, it seems like people want the NFL to become soft.  I just hope players like Rodney Harrison, Donovin Darius, and Bryce Paup ( I wish he was still in the league) continue to play the game the way it’s supposed to be played regardless of penalties and fines, because that maintaining that style of play and its positive effects on the team as a whole greatly outweighs any negatives that those penalties and fines may bring.  I saw an amazing hit by Ed Reed on Koren Robinson going over the middle the other night and I couldn’t even appreciate the hit fully until the replay because I was afraid they would call some helmet to helmet, unnecessary roughness penalty (it could have easily been called considering most of these other calls). All of these penalties, fines, points of emphasis, etc. are not only unnecessary, but they are an injustice to the game of football, and I just cannot stand it.  Let me know how you people stand on this.


Premature - Trojans... the play on words pretty much writes itself here
There is one thing I would like to get out there before I go away for a few days.  As I’m sure most of us have seen, ESPN is gradually working their way towards crowning the 2005 USC Trojans as the greatest team of all time (First off, they are not better than the 2001 Miami Hurricanes [I may be biased, The U is my favorite team], look at that team please whenever you get a chance, these guys are dominating the NFL, but that's a different story; I will go along with ESPN for the purpose of this argument).  There are many factors that make me question this whole ridiculous charade they have going, but one that is ringing loud and clear in my mind is this:  How about the fact that they HAVEN'T BEATEN TEXAS YET!!!!  These guys still have to play for the national championship this year and ESPN is crowning them the best of all time?  What if Texas wins?  Does that make them better than every team in the history of college football?  If I were Mack Brown, Vince Young, and the rest of the Longhorns, I would surely use this as motivation; and if I were a USC Trojan, I don’t know if I would be happy with this.  This could have easily waited until after the Rose Bowl; but needless to say, I’m very anxious to see how it turns out.

And I will leave you with my image and quote of the week (both of which relate to the topic above):

“Have you seen what the tickets for the Rose Bowl are going for?  If you get a chance tonight when you’re checking scores, go to ebay and check it out.  I mean looking at the prices for these tickets, it makes me want to call my friend Mike Tice”
-- Brent Musberger