Thread: Jerry Jones, DeAngelo Hall blame Seattle Seahawks for increased penalties

Originally Posted by MOtorboat

I think most casual observers of the NFL can see that the league office doesn't want a repeat of the thuggery displayed last season in the upper northwest.

During the SB bye week, there were already articles citing Competition Committee members saying they'd crackdown in the offseason, specifically because of Seattle. They're dirty thugs; that's why they had MULTIPLE players whine their way out of yet more PED suspensions last year, and why the NFL's fined them two years running for making no-contact practices into yes-contact practices. Once the season starts, they'll go right back to practices with WRs wearing armor over all the legal areas so their DBs can practice legally rupturing organs and breaking bones.

Here's the best part though: All that got them to a Super Bowl where they humiliated historys best passing game for a full 60 minutes en route to the franchises first championship.

In other words, it worked; it won them the uncoveted Al Davis Memorial Award for most penalties in a season, but also won them a title, so you can bet all 31 other teams will shamelessly copy that winning formula as they do every time someone comes up with something new that works. Not that steroids and cheap shots are exactly NEW, but Seattle's made a systematic science of doing both in ways just close enough to legal that the division titles and Rings far outweight the flags, non-suspensions and token fines; it's fine as long as concussion-free.

Originally Posted by Al Wilson 4 Mayor

Exactly....the idea that they had to re write rules this year to fix the problem is absolutely ridiculous. The rule which states there is no contact allowed after five yards has been in place for at least two decades. The league just doesn't want to admit they weren't enforcing it last year and it resulted in an advantage for teams like the Seahawks.

I complained about it all of last year. There were articles written last year stating the Seahawks knew that no one would call them for it on every play, so they rolled the dice and did it on every play.

That's how that works; the refs can't see everything, and even if they do, if it happens every down they stop calling it after a while, like they feel some sort of twisted cop-guilt for busting the same guy over and over again; "Gee, this is like the fifth time in a year I've arrested him for shooting up a liquor store; maybe I'M the problem...." Dirty teams know and exploit that: The Raiders were famous for it in the '70s and '80s, and everyone hated them for it, but they just pointed to their 3 SB Rings and laughed.

Seattle's just the CGI Raiders; an updated high tech version for the 21st Century, with a Red Queens Race to see how fast drug testing can catch up with new designer "supplements." There again it's a case of "you can't catch everyone every time, and if you catch a lot of people we can guilt you out of it by alleging persecution." Maybe Prater and Miller should try that; they didn't get their suspensions overturned on appeal, but Sherman and Browner only tested positive for PEDs (in Browners case, 3 years straight,) not something BAD.