Thread: Broncos Gameday Thread: Broncos vs Cowboys 09/17/17

http://scout.com/nfl/broncos/Article...n-De-107674769

Jackass WR tried to put a hit on Von's knee.

Originally Posted by GEM

http://scout.com/nfl/broncos/Article...n-De-107674769

Jackass WR tried to put a hit on Von's knee.

1) We are the VERY last team with any right to complain someone cut our defender as their RB cut back toward him: We patented that move and shrugged when opposing LBs, DEs, and DTs screamed about their knees. It's not like the WR just suddenly rolled up on him miles from the ball: He was trying to block (emphasis on "trying.")

2) The NFL doesn't penalize intent to injure, it penalizes specific types of contact with specific body parts—even when that contact is accidental and negligible. I WISH it penalized intent to "legally injure" instead of every pass rusher whose finger brushes the crown of a QBs helmet; write the Competition Committee.

Originally Posted by Joel

1) We are the VERY last team with any right to complain someone cut our defender as their RB cut back toward him: We patented that move and shrugged when opposing LBs, DEs, and DTs screamed about their knees. It's not like the WR just suddenly rolled up on him miles from the ball: He was trying to block (emphasis on "trying.")

2) The NFL doesn't penalize intent to injure, it penalizes specific types of contact with specific body parts—even when that contact is accidental and negligible. I WISH it penalized intent to "legally injure" instead of every pass rusher whose finger brushes the crown of a QBs helmet; write the Competition Committee.

Joel, what our linemen were doing TWENTY years ago was called a cut block, aimed at the front of the legs. What that guy did to Von is a chop block aimed at the side of ones leg. Cut blocking is highly annoying, but not likely to end someone's career like chop blocking is.

Originally Posted by Joel

1) We are the VERY last team with any right to complain someone cut our defender as their RB cut back toward him: We patented that move and shrugged when opposing LBs, DEs, and DTs screamed about their knees. It's not like the WR just suddenly rolled up on him miles from the ball: He was trying to block (emphasis on "trying.")

2) The NFL doesn't penalize intent to injure, it penalizes specific types of contact with specific body parts—even when that contact is accidental and negligible. I WISH it penalized intent to "legally injure" instead of every pass rusher whose finger brushes the crown of a QBs helmet; write the Competition Committee.

Erroneous!

Chop from the side will instantly tear an acl. That was an attempt to injure. Don't give me shit from 20 years ago!

So, a couple of things... it looks bad, but if you held a gun to my head I couldn’t swear it was on purpose. I don’t know what the NFL rule is but in college this is a legal block. It’s technical but the reason it’s legal in college is because of the blocker’s position at the snap. I’m glad Miller wasn’t hurt, that’s a scary block.

Also, the difference between a cut block and a chop block is not whether the block is in the front or the side. A chop block requires a high-low/low-high combination block by two different players and is ALWAYS illegal. Hope this helps.

It was the hit him once and then go right for the side of the knee again that bothered me. Like oh I'm not just trying to tackle you, I'm taking out that knee. Dude was the sensei in karate kid. Sweep the knee.

Originally Posted by Al Wilson 4 Mayor

Joel, what our linemen were doing TWENTY years ago was called a cut block, aimed at the front of the legs. What that guy did to Von is a chop block aimed at the side of ones leg. Cut blocking is highly annoying, but not likely to end someone's career like chop blocking is.

Originally Posted by GEM

Chop from the side will instantly tear an acl. That was an attempt to injure. Don't give me shit from 20 years ago!

As spiker noted, it is literally impossible for a lone player to chop block, because chop blocks require double high/low engagement by definition: It's illegal and highly dangerous because one player immobilizes an opponents upper body while the other sweeps legs locked firmly into the ground beneath said body, practically guaranteeing serious shearing injury. That's not what happened Sunday, else Von wouldn't have been able to roll with the blow as he did.

Originally Posted by spikerman

So, a couple of things... it looks bad, but if you held a gun to my head I couldn’t swear it was on purpose. I don’t know what the NFL rule is but in college this is a legal block. It’s technical but the reason it’s legal in college is because of the blocker’s position at the snap. I’m glad Miller wasn’t hurt, that’s a scary block.

Also, the difference between a cut block and a chop block is not whether the block is in the front or the side. A chop block requires a high-low/low-high combination block by two different players and is ALWAYS illegal. Hope this helps.

Even by my standards that's a loquacious way to say, "Joel was right on both counts." I'm used to fans of other teams being (deliberately or otherwise unclear on the difference between a chop and cut block (my best friend's a huge Packer fan who's been giving me crap about cut blocks every bit of 20 years, though he at least knows the legal difference) but confess surprise so many fellow Broncos fans were equally unaware. Thanks for clearing it up for them.

As you most likely know, the Competition Committee's progressively restricted cut blocks over several seasons, but they are generally still legal. Maybe they shouldn't be, or perhaps they should be treated like pre-snap motion men: You can move laterally or backward, but diving FORWARD into an opponents knees is forbidden because when someone plants their foot to take a step with all their weight on that leg it's pretty much stuck with all their momentum moving forward over it, so if another player crashes into it from the opposite direction it's very easy to cause a fib/tib fracture and/or stretch ligaments behind the knee beyond their breaking point.

As far as our well worn "intent" debate: Okay, it's fair to say (especially in this case) none of us can be sure whether the receiver intended injury—but if you knew for a 100% certain CONCRETE FACT that he did and were a ref on the field, would you be legally authorized to throw a flag even then? Or just reduced to checking whether it was a spear, headshot or helmet-to-helmet contact you'd be obliged to flag even if so brief and trivial the "attacked" player never even noticed the contact?

You DO know I agree we should minimize ref judgement calls as much as practical, if only to avoid making your already thankless job even less popular and more controversial. Every single time a ref's forced to make a judgement call he's consequently forced to enrage roughly half a games fans WHATEVER he rules: The sole choice is WHOM you want demanding your head for what reason. We certainly don't want playoff berths nor championships decided by a particular random refs existential views on mans place in the cosmos instead of concrete, objective and verifiable physical realities like "did any part of the ball cross any part of the goal line" and "did any part of the players body contact any part of the sideline?"

Yet the key word isn't "minimize" but "PRACTICAL:" If the NFL cared half as much about player as it pretends, every possible effort would be made to severely restrict and penalize deliberate efforts at injury. Even the most truly "amateur" football is already halfway there with the SECAAs targeting rule, so it's not like no precedent exists; if the NFL can eventually steal colleges 2PAT rule, surely it's justified to steal the headhunting ban.

Most importantly, it would put an end to guys like James Harrison scanning annual rules revisions in full-on Belichick mode, painstakingly seeking out all the loopholes that let them continue threatening opponents' careers and even LIVES within the legally prescribed guidelines, while ethical players get slapped with penalties, fines and even suspensions for accidental contact that threatens no one yet just happens to fall within the particular "appendage of emphasis" rules the NFL is enforcing at any given time.

Those rules do NOTHING to improve player safety, precisely because they focus entirely on MEANS of injury rather than INTENT. If criminal law merely said, "it's illegal to stab anyone in the face," violent criminals would just shrug their shoulders and go right on SHOOTING people instead: That's why we made it illegal to assault people at all, WHATEVER the means. I was only half-joking when I told GEM to write the Competition Committee; I'd enthusiastically add my signature to any such petition.

Here is a more detailed explanation of why Joseph took that timeout at the end of the half. Two things I like here - one, he owned it. And two, he was trying to be aggressive to get the ball back and give our offense a chance to score with about a minute left in the half. How often has that happened in the last couple of years?

Up 21-7, with less than two minutes on the clock in the second quarter, the first-year head man was hungry for a knockout punch. With the Cowboys in possession of the ball, looking to drive and tighten the game, “VJ” had ideas of flipping the script.

“I had three timeouts and, offensively, we were rolling pretty good. There was like 1:50 so I was going to stack the timeouts,” he explained. “I was hoping to win the first down, call a timeout, put them in second-and-long, timeout again, put them in third down, timeout again and get the ball back with 1:10.”

Just one problem—the Broncos didn’t win first down, and Joseph still called for time.

“I thought it was a four-yard gain versus an eight-yard gain. I was standing back from the (line of scrimmage). That was a rookie coach making a rookie mistake… That was strictly on me.”

http://bsndenver.com/why-vance-josep...r-the-broncos/

Joel, your post was long . The fact that Gem thought the block was dirty and I wasn’t sure is a great example of why you wouldn’t want officials to judge intent in most cases. They already do in some very specific instances, but you’ll get a lot more consistency by judging the act and not the intent. It’s damn near impossible to tell what a player is thinking.

Originally Posted by spikerman

Joel, your post was long . The fact that Gem thought the block was dirty and I wasn’t sure is a great example of why you wouldn’t want officials to judge intent in most cases. They already do in some very specific instances, but you’ll get a lot more consistency by judging the act and not the intent. It’s damn near impossible to tell what a player is thinking.

Nah, that's just when you have Talib pull a Dallas.

Originally Posted by spikerman

Joel, your post was long . The fact that Gem thought the block was dirty and I wasn’t sure is a great example of why you wouldn’t want officials to judge intent in most cases. They already do in some very specific instances, but you’ll get a lot more consistency by judging the act and not the intent. It’s damn near impossible to tell what a player is thinking.

I appreciate that, but 1) reffing acts rather than intent is manifestly NOT WORKING, because 2) players with intent are simply dissecting the rule revisions and finding legal acts to accomplish the same intentional injuries so 3) it is necessary to directly address that rather than continuing trying but failing to solve the problem by talking around it. "[Refs] already do [judge intent] in some very specific instances" because that was deemed a lesser evil than the problem it was designed to remedy. I personally think the specter of CTE combined with "remedies" that remedy NOTHING despite turning the game into arcade football a greater evil than refs judging intent to injure.

Originally Posted by GEM

Nah, that's just when you have Talib pull a Dallas.

How would it help if he shot himself in the ass (again)?

Great reminder though: Live by the sword, die by the sword. I've never understood the logic that judges an acts propriety by its perpetrator rather than its nature. It's fine for Talib to publicly ADMIT trying to snap a guys neck in the SB just to "send a message" (presumably the message was "try to score on us and I'll try to paralyze you from the neck down") but if some random WR pulls one of our patented cut blocks on Von he's a jackass.

Originally Posted by Joel

How would it help if he shot himself in the ass (again)?

Great reminder though: Live by the sword, die by the sword. I've never understood the logic that judges an acts propriety by its perpetrator rather than its nature. It's fine for Talib to publicly ADMIT trying to snap a guys neck in the SB just to "send a message" (presumably the message was "try to score on us and I'll try to paralyze you from the neck down") but if some random WR pulls one of our patented cut blocks on Von he's a jackass.

Because he runs faster when the bullets are flying.

Originally Posted by MOtorboat

Because he runs faster when the bullets are flying.

I suppose he'd have to.