FBS Coaches Support Tiered Targeting Penalties
From the article:
"Todd Berry, the executive director of the American Football Coaches Association, said Wednesday that the FBS coaches in their annual meeting unanimously supported a model that would assign Targeting 1 or Targeting 2 to a player who makes forcible contact with the crown of his helmet. Targeting 1 fouls would result in a 15-yard penalty but no ejection or suspension. Targeting 2 fouls would result in an automatic ejection and potential suspension."
One thing that I like about the current rule is that there is no attempt to gauge intent. IMO attempting to gauge intent leaves to much gray area for the refs to inject their opinion. Additionally, the current rule issues punishment based on the result, not the intent. It doesn't matter if a player intended to hit the head/neck area of another player or not, the impact and thus the risk of injury occurred. If the goal is to eliminate contact to the head/neck area, then accidental contact needs to be eliminated as well as intentional contact.
IMO, the only way to really eliminate contact to the head/neck area is to punish all contact equally (I'm not saying that punishment is consistent today, but it has gotten more consistent over the years). Eventually players will adjust attack angles and tackling technique and the risk of contact will be reduced/eliminated.
January 9th, 2019 at 6:29 PM ^
Potential suspension? Wouldn't be surprised it it became very controversial and created conspiracy theories, lol.
January 9th, 2019 at 7:36 PM ^
15 yards for a T1 doesnt sound like enough. That's no different than a personal foul, but the play itself could cause significant (unintentional) injury. I would have preferred to see:
Personal Foul/Roughing: 15 yards (no change)
T1: sit 2 quarters
T2: automatic ejection and miss next game. Send to conference to review. Let conference reinstate if they deem it was not malicious with intent. This gives a week for a thorough investigation rather than putting someone on the spot.
Most targeting penalties would still be T1. T2 deserves much worse.
With T1 structured this way. If a player gets flagged in the 3rd quarter, they miss the 4th Q and 1Q of the next game, rather than missing the entire next game.
January 9th, 2019 at 9:09 PM ^
Good lord, can you imagine the bookkeeping on that? Every team would have to hire an extra staff menber just to track what quarters every player was eligible to play in.
January 9th, 2019 at 11:20 PM ^
We had what, 3 or 4 targeting penalties called on us over 13 games? I think you are exaggerating a bit. Or, you dont work very hard if you think that's a full time job.
January 9th, 2019 at 8:12 PM ^
It needs to be 1 tier. If it is blatant, it's football FGS!
January 9th, 2019 at 8:14 PM ^
It's a terrible rule now the way they enforce it. I've seen too many players ejected for just playing football.