Offensive holding on an intentional safety

[gatorump]

The only way to prevent this from taking away from the spirit of the game is to make it a loss of down penalty from the previous spot, if it was to be determined that the holding was done to run additional time off the clock. I think it was a great strategy for the Ravens, but bad for football. Most rules are put in place because someone found and exploited a loophole. The officials should just enforce the rulebook. IMO no different than taking a delay of game to give your punter more room or to run off a couple more seconds. Now if the competition committee feels the need to change the rule, then the players and officials will then be bound by them.

BTW how do they not at least call holding on that?

[gatordee]

Originally Posted by SmootyGator

To be honest, so would I. I also think they should get rid of the onside kick as well. Not a lot of people I talk about this with agree with me. Oh well.

Why the onside kick? Because of the onside kick, there have been some great come backs. It is used %95 of the time in desperation and I would bet that the % of it working is slim.

[tegator80]

Put me down as a vote for shrewd move by Baltimore. It sucks that SF couldn't do anything about it but what are the choices? I didn't make the connection that Baltimore held on the play, I just thought that SF was in max protect for a return and didn't pay attention to the game that was being played by the punter.

It ranks right up there with allowing the other team to deliberately score a TD with time on the clock to give your team a chance to win it with your QB. It isn't really a part of the game but what are the choices? I say give mad props to the coaches to figure out the best alternative. Everything else seems to be sour grapes.

[WarDamnGator]

Here's a GIF someone posted, in addition to the bear hug, you can see #37 wraps up and tackles #27, and the other punt rusher is pushed down (but looks legal) ...

The 49ers coach said he would have told his guys to tackle on the same play, but doesn't understand why a flag wasn't thrown, even if it was meaningless.

[Speedofsand]

^ That's what I saw and mentioned in the game thread, Ravens 37 just straight up tackled SF 27, among others holding. Smart play by Balt., penalty was the same as the intended play. Refs didn't even bother to flag it. Maybe there ought to be a new rule.

[SmootyGator]

Originally Posted by WarDamnGator

Actually, just to get the facts straight, no penalty was called. It's possible that the refs ate the flag because they knew there was no punishment. But when the punter is standing nearly still, alone in the endzone, and the nearest guy to him is being bear hugged, I can't imagine the refs didn't see it.

Comparisons of football to basketball don't work. The team that commits the foul gets penalized when the other team is given a free chance to score two more points on them. That's a penalty in addition to the desired results of intentional foul, which is to get the ball back with time on the clock. There is an upside, and a downside to late fouls in BB.

Here, the Ravens only got the desired results of the there play, with no penalty (even if one had been called). They got the safety they wanted, and they wasted a few seconds off the clock. Where is the downside?

But to take it one step further, there is a mandatory 10 second run off if the offensive team is trailing late in the game, has no time outs, and commits a foul. The NFL recognized that teams were committing intentional penalties just to stop the clock, and the upside outweighed the downside. This is the exact opposite. A team that was leading late in the game, when the other team has no time outs, commits a penalty to keep the clock rolling.... can't see why one instance should be banned by the rules and the other not.

Like I said, and others have said, this loophole is easy to correct ... give the fouled team the option to accept the penalty and put time back on the clock ... but the safety stands.

Downside? The downside is that the other team gets 2 points! Just because the team giving up the 2 points doesn't care about the 2 points doesn't mean that there isn't a "downside".

Sometimes teams take a delay of game penalty in order to keep the clock rolling, albeit only a second or two extra. Do you think that teams should be able to do that? There's no "downside" to doing that if they're still in range of punting it to the goal line. They're intentionally committing a penalty. Same thing?

[samit23]

Holding is not a dead ball foul. You guy are reading something into nothing. The 49ers could have gone after the punter in anticipation and saved the clock.

Sent from my iPhone using GatorCountry

[g8rboy]

maybe the 49ers should have called better plays on third and fourth and goal and scored.

[WarDamnGator]

Originally Posted by SmootyGator

Sometimes teams take a delay of game penalty in order to keep the clock rolling, albeit only a second or two extra. Do you think that teams should be able to do that? There's no "downside" to doing that if they're still in range of punting it to the goal line. They're intentionally committing a penalty. Same thing?

When a team takes a delay of game penalty, they lose 5 yards. A down side ... When the play call is "take a safety, tackle the punt rushers, waste time" ... what exactly is the punishment for the illegal act of tackling the punt rushers? I mean, normally, when a team breaks a rule, they receive a punishment that outweighs whatever gains they got ... in this case, they break a rule and get rewarded for it. And like I've said, this is easy to fix with a small rule change. But good for the Ravens for knowing the rule and taking advantage of it.

[SmootyGator]

Originally Posted by WarDamnGator

When a team takes a delay of game penalty, they lose 5 yards. A down side ...

You just said it again. When they take a safety, they lose 2 points which is a downside.

Originally Posted by WarDamnGator

When the play call is "take a safety, tackle the punt rushers, waste time" ... what exactly is the punishment for the illegal act of tackling the punt rushers? I mean, normally, when a team breaks a rule, they receive a punishment that outweighs whatever gains they got ...

Normally they do, but this is a special circumstance where they don't care about giving up 2 points. So you think penalties should be allocated differently given different game time circumstances? If Baltimore did what they did in the middle of the 1st quarter, the penalty should have been different because the circumstances were different?

Going back to the basketball analogy: Teams foul at the end of games because the benefits (stopping the clock) outweigh the punishment they get (giving the other team free-throws). I see no difference here.

Originally Posted by WarDamnGator

in this case, they break a rule and get rewarded for it. And like I've said, this is easy to fix with a small rule change. But good for the Ravens for knowing the rule and taking advantage of it.

See the answer above. Fouling at the end of a basketball game is breaking rules which you get rewarded for.

IMO, the biggest difference between this and my Basketball analogy has to do with a team winning and holding on to the win, as opposed to the team behind trying to come back. People probably think its more acceptable to break rules intentionally when they're behind because they're losing and they've got to do whatever it takes to win.

[SmootyGator]

Originally Posted by gatordee

Why the onside kick? Because of the onside kick, there have been some great come backs. It is used %95 of the time in desperation and I would bet that the % of it working is slim.

I know, I know. Most people don't agree with me. My feeling is that: why should a team have some special rule to give them a shot in the game when they've been getting their butts handed to them the whole time. I realize that on-sides kicks and fouling at the end of B-Ball games makes a lot more games interesting, and that's why most people like the rules. I just disagree, and realize that I'm in the minority.

The basketball fouling (free-throws) really should be a choice from the team that gets fouled. I really think that the team should have the option to decline the penalty depending on whether or not it benefits them, just like football.

[WarDamnGator]

I still don't understand how taking a safety is a punishment when the play call is to take an intentional safety?

So you think penalties should be allocated differently given different game time circumstances?

As I pointed out above, this is already the case. For example, If a team commits a false start in the first 28 minutes of a half, it's a 5 yard penalty. If a team commits a false start in the last two minutes, subject to the situation, it could result in a 5 yard penalty PLUS a loss of 10 seconds or a loss of a time out. So, there is already a precedence in the rules for eliminating abuse of the game clock.

But this seems pretty simple to me. Normally, when a team scores, the clock stops. So, give the defense the option to retroactively stop the clock when they score a safety by offensive holding, which would be at the moment the holding occurred. It's an easy way to remedy a rule that allows one team to abuse the clock rules.

And again, from all examples and basketball analogies you are using, you still have not shown a situation where the violating team does not receive a punishment outside of the intended results which benefit them. That's what makes this so interesting to me. I also can't think of another situation is sports where the violating team can commit a penalty and get rewarded for it, with no downside.

[CHFG8R]

I know it's a little off topic, but on the subject of penalties that were not called, how about the blow to the head on James' fumble. A friend said that it wasn't called because it was shoulder-to-head, but isn't any blow to the head a penalty (and fine)? If that's the case, is a shoulder to the head any better than a hand/arm? And if it's head injuries that NFL is worried about, should that not be a penalty?

That said, how does the NFL deal with a turnover caused by a clear violation? I thought it was interesting how nobody said a thing. Not sure the NFL has a rule to deal with this, but it was clear on the replay: A direct blow to the head caused that fumble.

[oragator1]

If they take away 10 seconds for intentional time wasting as a penalty, why not add 10 seconds as a penalty in that situation? It would have given SFO 2 more plays.

[denny_crane]

Had SF not wasted 2 timeouts earlier, they could've prevented this discussion...

[oragator1]

Originally Posted by denny_crane

Had SF not wasted 2 timeouts earlier, they could've prevented this discussion...

Yeah, when they burned the TO to save five yards on third down I thought it was really dumb. If you are passing anyway, 5 yards in the RZ is far less valuable than the 40 seconds if you don't convert. That second TO might very well have cost them the game.

[SmootyGator]

Originally Posted by WarDamnGator

I still don't understand how taking a safety is a punishment when the play call is to take an intentional safety?



As I pointed out above, this is already the case. For example, If a team commits a false start in the first 28 minutes of a half, it's a 5 yard penalty. If a team commits a false start in the last two minutes, subject to the situation, it could result in a 5 yard penalty PLUS a loss of 10 seconds or a loss of a time out. So, there is already a precedence in the rules for eliminating abuse of the game clock.

But this seems pretty simple to me. Normally, when a team scores, the clock stops. So, give the defense the option to retroactively stop the clock when they score a safety by offensive holding, which would be at the moment the holding occurred. It's an easy way to remedy a rule that allows one team to abuse the clock rules.

And again, from all examples and basketball analogies you are using, you still have not shown a situation where the violating team does not receive a punishment outside of the intended results which benefit them. That's what makes this so interesting to me. I also can't think of another situation is sports where the violating team can commit a penalty and get rewarded for it, with no downside.

I guess that we just have a difference of opinion. You think giving up 2 points isn't a "punishment", and I do. What if the punter had rolled to the right, only to discover that he had a receiver wide open down the right side of the field, so he throws it down the field and he catches it for the first down? The play would be called back and a safety (2 points for the other team) would have been called. That would be the down side or punishment. I agree with you that the intent of the punter wasn't to do this, but intent shouldn't be a deciding factor.

You keep saying that the safety benefited Baltimore. How does giving the other team 2 free points benefit them? There wasn't that much time left, but SF still got the ball back via kickoff. What if they ran it all the way down to Baltimore's 20 Yard line and there was a penalty on Baltimore. SF could have kicked a FG to tie the game instead of having to score a TD. That is downside of taking the safety. The fact that they chose to take the safety has nothing to do with anything.

[WarDamnGator]

You keep saying that the safety benefited Baltimore. How does giving the other team 2 free points benefit them?

I don't think I'm alone in thinking that the safety was to Raven's advantage or benefit. I'm pretty sure the Baltimore head coach thought so, as well. But that really has nothing to do with it. The point is, the situation in the game exposed a loophole that allows one team to break the rules (holding to burn extra seconds), gain an advantage, and have virtually no penalty outside of their desired outcome of their called play. The leagues have done quite a few things to end the manipulation of clock rules (10 second run offs, requiring a Time Out for late game injuries, etc.), so I wouldn't be surprised to see this get addressed.

[GatorLaw]

Originally Posted by WarDamnGator

When a team takes a delay of game penalty, they lose 5 yards. A down side ... . .

Not necessarily. Sometimes the extra five yards of room to kick is an advantage. At a minimum it's not a disadvantage as long as after the penalty the punter can still kick it near the goal line.

[allig8ralli]

It's called being Outcoached. That is all.