Targeting- can we have a real and honest talk about this

[jakejc795]

Yes i think there is agreement this is not a training film perfect tackle. definitely no effort to wrap up

i am curious. WHO here believes that his intent was to hit the player in the head or the neck or to attempt to injure the WR? i think some Non Jacks fans seem to have that point of view. do some of us here share that?

i absolutely DO NOT believe that. i have little interest in debating each point of the tackle and what was good and bad. but TRUE it was not a perfect tackle. i would be interested how many of those ever actually occur in a game. i would say very very few

not that players cannot try and i am a big BIG fan of wrapping up!! but it is very hard to simulate live tackling with practice tackling and the other guy really never cooperates


anyway i agree NOT a textbook tackle
i TOTALLY DISAGREE a malicious tackle or any intent to injure

i have looked at the play 50 times. graham does clearly turn his body to attempt delivering the blow with his shoulder and not his head. if you lean forward at all, which you do when you tackle, it is pretty impossible to keep the head from making contact

his head could be up more YES
does he hit with the crown of his helmet or the front or facemask? absolutely not, the left earhole of his helmet makes contact with the WR left jaw

is the helmet the first thing to make contact?? what you see really depends on where you were standing, but very possibly YES, but it is close and in real time contact with his left shoulder and the left side of his head against the WR are basically instantaneous

i believe his CLEAR INTENT is to make contact with his shoulder. and his shoulder hits the WR in the chest. his shoulder is clearly NOT aimed at the neck or head

the contact with his head is, STILL A FOUL, but i do believe the head contact is incidental. his plan is to hit with his left shoulder and his left shoulder goes into the body, NOT the head or neck

when you look at the replay from the offensive end of the field, you see the left shoulder and side of the WR and you see the numbers on the front of graham shirt and the buckle of his pants. WHY do i say this? because it shows him CLEARLY turning his body to initiate contact with his shoulder

and someone said in their view he did launch. his feet NEVER leave the ground other than a normal running pattern

WELL i guess now i have done what i said i did not want to do and stated HOW i see the hit. others will disagree that is fine. i have no belief that i can make everyone see what i see

Two factors likely reduce/eliminate the probability non-Jacks fans give Spalding any benefit of the doubt. First, his actions immediately after the hit, regardless of what was said as he knelt above Dennis. Second, his sideline behavior; even if Spalding asserts he didn't know Dennis was injured seconds after the hit, he had to know as he stood on the sideline and Dennis was being attended to, and some understandably object to a person smilling/chuckling while a player the "offender" had a direct influence in injuring is laying on the field

[SF_Rabbit_Fan]

Yes i think there is agreement this is not a training film perfect tackle. definitely no effort to wrap up

i am curious. WHO here believes that his intent was to hit the player in the head or the neck or to attempt to injure the WR? i think some Non Jacks fans seem to have that point of view. do some of us here share that?

i absolutely DO NOT believe that. i have little interest in debating each point of the tackle and what was good and bad. but TRUE it was not a perfect tackle. i would be interested how many of those ever actually occur in a game. i would say very very few

not that players cannot try and i am a big BIG fan of wrapping up!! but it is very hard to simulate live tackling with practice tackling and the other guy really never cooperates


anyway i agree NOT a textbook tackle
i TOTALLY DISAGREE a malicious tackle or any intent to injure

i have looked at the play 50 times. graham does clearly turn his body to attempt delivering the blow with his shoulder and not his head. if you lean forward at all, which you do when you tackle, it is pretty impossible to keep the head from making contact

his head could be up more YES
does he hit with the crown of his helmet or the front or facemask? absolutely not, the left earhole of his helmet makes contact with the WR left jaw

is the helmet the first thing to make contact?? what you see really depends on where you were standing, but very possibly YES, but it is close and in real time contact with his left shoulder and the left side of his head against the WR are basically instantaneous

i believe his CLEAR INTENT is to make contact with his shoulder. and his shoulder hits the WR in the chest. his shoulder is clearly NOT aimed at the neck or head

the contact with his head is, STILL A FOUL, but i do believe the head contact is incidental. his plan is to hit with his left shoulder and his left shoulder goes into the body, NOT the head or neck

when you look at the replay from the offensive end of the field, you see the left shoulder and side of the WR and you see the numbers on the front of graham shirt and the buckle of his pants. WHY do i say this? because it shows him CLEARLY turning his body to initiate contact with his shoulder

and someone said in their view he did launch. his feet NEVER leave the ground other than a normal running pattern

WELL i guess now i have done what i said i did not want to do and stated HOW i see the hit. others will disagree that is fine. i have no belief that i can make everyone see what i see

I think Spalding was playing football, and during that play a penalty was inadvertently committed. There is no question in my mind that it was correctly called. It happens all the time with lots of different penalties. Holding, pass interference, block in the back, etc. The targeting calls that kill me are the ones where an offensive player is in the process of starting to go down and his head drops by 4 inches, which means a helmet/helmet collision with an incoming player.

Unsportsmanlike conduct after the play (in addition to being unsportsmanlike) is the kind of thing that could cost us dearly in the playoffs. It demonstrates a significant lack of individual discipline. Imagine if we had a 3 point lead and it extended a drive that ended in a touchdown that left 30 seconds on the clock. Bison fans think a similar lack of discipline by their QB cost them the game against us.

[SteelSD]

i TOTALLY agree that according to the rule, he DEFINITELY should have been flagged for targeting

he absolutely did hit the receiver when the receiver did not have the ability to defend himself

BUT THAT also assumes WE AGREE that the WR could not defend himself because he is expected to do his job of trying to catch the ball

i think where we have a very rare disagreement is that you are ok with this rule under these circumstances and i am not.

This exact play, in my opinion, is the MOST HIGH RISK play that remains in the game of football. it is the play where a player is the most likely to get injured even after a clean hit or tackle is made. (obviously there is PLENTY of debate about if graham's hit was clean or not, besides the wr being defenseless)

coaches and players have done a very very good job of teaching/ learning to keep the head UP. that has greatly decreased the chance for serious injury. you still get big hits if a LB or safety meets an RB directly in the hole with little room for maneuvering but as long as nobody puts their head down, somebody maybe comes away with a bit of pain but very rarely an injury

i could list a bunch of other potentially risky scenarios where the risk has been hugely if not completely removed

but this scenario with a WR (or other receiver) coming from one side of the field and a defender from the other and they are running directly at each other in opposite directions with the WR looking at the ball and not at the field in front of him carries great risk. and i just do not think it is honest to EASILY and WILLINGLY tell offensive coaches and players that they can CHOOSE to run these routes and that all of the responsibility for the WR safety falls on the defense

i guess we will see where the conversation goes. maybe nobody else sees what i am saying and / or i look like a bigger idiot than usual

So how does you agreeing with a rule or not affect how it is enforced on the field? You may not agree that the speed limit in any area may be 35 mph, but if you go 80 the cops really don't care whether you agree with the posted speed or not. This was a targeting play. I was a Safety and lived to light guys up like he did, but the rules have changed and it's the rule and so you have to follow it. I don't condemn the player for this penalty, it's a player trying to make a bam-bam play. However, standing over him like he did was bush league. We would rightfully be roasting a UND player if he had done that to one of our guys.

Personally I don't understand why players are ejected for this infraction. If we are so worried about injuries, then eject players for chop blocks, horsecollar tackles, and facemasks as well. But at the end of the day the optics are that our player is a punk. Is he in real life? I doubt it. But every player knows you don't stand over a player and talk crap. Period.

[LetsGoRabbits]

So how does you agreeing with a rule or not affect how it is enforced on the field? You may not agree that the speed limit in any area may be 35 mph, but if you go 80 the cops really don't care whether you agree with the posted speed or not. This was a targeting play. I was a Safety and lived to light guys up like he did, but the rules have changed and it's the rule and so you have to follow it. I don't condemn the player for this penalty, it's a player trying to make a bam-bam play. However, standing over him like he did was bush league. We would rightfully be roasting a UND player if he had done that to one of our guys.

Personally I don't understand why players are ejected for this infraction. If we are so worried about injuries, then eject players for chop blocks, horsecollar tackles, and facemasks as well. But at the end of the day the optics are that our player is a punk. Is he in real life? I doubt it. But every player knows you don't stand over a player and talk crap. Period.

Do you think there is a single thing you said that i DISAGREE with? if you have been reading this thread you KNOW there is not so i guess i am not sure, are you addressing this to me? are you disagreeing with me? agreeing with me? or just making, what you see as some additional comments that i am just not understanding?

anyway i had a whole point by point with examples showing how i agreed with you. but it sounded combative and argumentative and i really do not like to give off that tone. it is not my wish or my point but i do think if you do or have followed this thread i am in total agreement with at least the spirit of your comments

i will say this. OF COURSE i never have some thought that my agreement or disagreement with anything should change it. simply as a fan of sports, thought as a body of sports fans we might have an interesting and maybe slightly useful discussion about this rule and the enforcement and the penalties, and not so much THIS SPECIFIC case

and your comment about NOT understanding players being ejected would indicate that at least you agree with me slightly. and FWIW you not understanding the penalty has as much impact on it being enforced as my disagreeing with it
ahemmm to give an example, if you are driving 80 in a 35mph zone and you get pulled over, telling the cop you do not understand why you are getting a ticket will not stop you from getting said ticket. if i knew how to add a crying laughing emoji here i would))))))