If his gesture was unbuckling a seatbelt I could see it. But punishing a guy for trying to raise public awareness for proper safety measures seems like a misstep by the NFL. They should probably instead fine everyone not doing seatbelt gestures.
Just a “thought”.
I’ve always been against calling penalties on “tells” or “cues”. Calling penalties on “tells” and “cues” is how Green Bay got that extra play for the hail mary win, and also how Try Flowers got called for back to back hands to the face penalties.
Upon further review we saw there was no face mask on Rodgers. He simply turned his head and the Refs “assumed” it must have been a face mask due to the “tell”.
Same with Flowers. The Olineman was tilting his head back and the Refs again assumed it must have been hands to the face.
Either see it or don’t see it. I would much rather Refs miss a call here and there over calling more penalties when there actually wasn’t one.
How much different is that than Aaron Rodgers State Farm commercial celebration?
Wait… did BB get fined for rhe seat belt celebration??
It’s not really clear. They said there was some chatter right after the play and maybe he violated some rule? ie; like if he said he was going to kill the guy’s mother. I’d like to see the list of things they can’t say…if there is such a list. That could be interesting.
So you are saying all facemasks are obvious and the refs should not miss any at all?
If so, we can agree to disagree. I can see how some can be missed, even by trained officials, and even full-time officials of the future (hopefully).
Agree this is a safety issue. This is probably why they are discussing a review from New York. Because many are pretty obvious when all camera angles are taken into account. The ref’s don’t immediately have access to all camera angles.
No, anything can be missed. I am saying that when it is clear and obvious, someone has to see it. You’ve got an entire officiating crew on the field. Someone is dedicated to watching the play. When you miss calls this often, something is clearly wrong.
For me, it’s no different than the offensive line false starting and its not called, or the offense linig up wrong and its not called. Or a defensive lineman lined up in the neutral zone. It’s blatantly obvious when it’s happening. If someone gets his head yanked around violently, and you see the hands on the facemask, it happened.
The NHL used to have issues with guys exaggerating, flopping and trying to work refs for calls. You fix it the way the NHL fixed it. Start ignoring the flops, calling penalties on it, and fining clear and obvious flops with escalations for chronic floppers. Does it solve everything? No, but it sends a message and gets a lot of BS out of the game.
Despite knowing better, I still just act like they are sheathing their sword. It’s 1,000x cooler. They are the soldiers, the knights. Last line of defense standing in line before victory. I will continue to live my life in denial about this.
Whatever it is they’re doing, I’m calling for less of that…and more Kung Fu!
OK, yes, when its clear and obvious it should be called. No argument.
But not every facemask penalty is clear and obvious. Many of them are more obvious after the fact, when you have access to every camera angle imaginable. You could not expect 25 refs to be as vigilant as all the camera angles we have access to these days, much less seven refs on the field today.
Flopping and exaggerating contact is a different issue. I also like the way the NHL addressed it. I’m not sure I’m following your logic, though, are you saying players are faking facemask penalties? I’m down for penalizing fakers, just as the NHL does. It’s really needed in the NBA as well, because the NBA is a mess.