The Ball Carrier Down By Contact Rule

I have no idea what constitutes roughing the passer anymore. Titans get flagged for hitting Orton in the thighs, a few minutes later Vince Young gets sacked grabbed below the knee and twisted, gets up limping and nothing. Vince Young gets picked up and dropped on his head by the Steelers and nothing. A D-lineman can put his arms up trying to deflect a pass and graze a QBs helmet and gets a penalty.....the Cardinals yank Aaron Rodgers down by the facemask and win in OT and no call.

 

Here is the real problem I saw watching the bucs/bengals game. Josh Freeman got wrapped up for about a second and then broke lose and ran to the right and threw it away. They called it a sack because "he was in the grasp of the defender" WTF????? that is the worst rule ever. So a qb who was never close to touching the ground is down as soon as a defender touches him? I actually got angry at that and I didn't even care who won. the commentators were questioning the horrible rule as well/

 

All I know is Kenny got screwed out of a TD on that call. Jenkins touched him as he was falling but before he even caught the ball. He NEVER touched him after he caught the pass. Should have been a TD, lame @ss call.

 

The NFL will never be perfect and there is no need to put more pressure on the refs to make a call. I do think they should change this rule but it will just create more confusion. Right now there are bigger problems the NFL needs to figure out.

 

won the stoolers a SB so I guess that is subjective as well


and concerning OP I say the rule is correct cause it is impossible to know exactly what knocked the player down. That incidental contact could have been just enough.

 

The easiest rule to interperate would be that when a ball carrier goes to the ground he is down whether he is touched or not. Britt clearly didn't go down by the CB's actions so it doesn't seem right that the CB should get credit for the tackle, Britt went by his own action, but the rule your talking about would be impossible to truely enforce or get right.

I've never really cared for the whole you can get up from the ground after falling down on your own, it cause too many gray areas and plays that are questionable. But if your going to have the down by contact rule then this current rule is the only way you can possibly do it. Two hand touch? this isn't backyard football. Once you start using specifics anything other then those specifics do not constitute a "tackle." Once you start using specific body parts to determine tackles then the rule actually becomes harder to enforce. Do elbows count? How about helmet contact? What if I sat on the player, is he down? or can he crawl another few feet with me on his back?

 

You see a lot of one handed ankle tackles. I think it would be difficult not to call the played downed because there was not two hands involved.
If they passed any new rule, it would be to out detriment the next game. Its almost a guarantee.

 

I have a huge problem with the "maintaining the catch to the ground" rule that hosed Calvin Johnson in Week 1.

I'll never forget that debacle in the Jags game (last season?) when the receiver had "three feet down."

It's so subjective.