Has The Hawk Changed His Tune?
November 27th, 2013
Dashon Goldson opens up on the wisdom of NFL rules, the hit on Roddy White, and what he’s doing to stay on the field
Before Dashon Goldson’s hit on Roddy White two Sundays ago, he said, “I’m not going to let nobody take The Hawk out of me.”
Roger Goodell and friends, however, had other ideas. Goldson was fined about $250,000 and was suspended for the Bucs-Lions game Sunday.
So has The Hawk changed his tune?
Not really. Speaking passionately last night on the Buccaneers Radio Network on WDAE-AM 620, Goldson talked about how league rules have him and other defensive backs in a nearly no-win situation.
“Everybody keep asking me, ‘Are you going to start hitting low and all that?’ The day I start hitting low, man, that’s when you start putting yourself in harm’s way,” Goldson said. “A lot of those guys get concussions from knees to the head or hitting one of those big backs or them big ol’ tight ends with them big legs, man, your head get one of those whistles. That’s how you get yourself hurt. You see what I’m saying?
“Going low it kinds of puts yourself at jeopardy, too. And definitely putting your opponent in a bad situation because, you know, causing me to go get a guy not looking low can blow out his knees or something, too, right? What’s better? Missing a guy for a play or two with a little head injury, or maybe a couple of days, or a guy missing his career, man, or a whole year or a whole season from blowing out a knee or something like that?
“Hey, what you want? You know what I’m sayin? What you want me to do? But I gotta find some kind of way. I think we [might have] to go back to the table on this one, on this rule. It is hard to make a decision in a split second like that. We’re playing with some world class athletes. Guys are fast big strong men.”
Goldson acknowledged accountability for the personal fouls and detailed how he’s responding and the challenges involved.
“The thing I gotta do is just re-educate on what really the rule is, where they want my hat to be placed, then simply watching film and seeing where I can take my shots. Just being better,” Goldson said. “There are other ways to get guys on the ground, you know what I mean. But that last shot I thought was good, but it wasn’t. I faced the consequences. But this week I just gotta go out here and play smart and play clean so I can finish games. Every week, man. I’m tired of missing these games out here, especially due to these suspensions. I’m just a hard player trying to win games.
“It’s hard. It’s really difficult man, the split second, the guy, you know, just for that play against Roddy White, for instance, he was running a slant and I broke on the ball, and I was really on path. I thought I was really on a good path of getting a good solid hit on him, you know hat across/hat in front and bring him down to the ground, but then the quarterback threw the ball back shoulder which whipped [White’s] whole body around and caused my angle to be messed up. And it was just a split second right there on contact to where my helmet touched his facemask. Boom! So it’s kind of quick, man. It’s a little hard. I just gotta do what I gotta do.
“No hard feelings when they start seeing, you know (laughs), seeing things. Just understand I’m just trying to play within the rules.”
Joe’s not sure what kind of late-November answer there could for Goldson. He sounds like a guy who needs to spend a couple of months re-learning how to tackle in the modern NFL.
The Bucs owe Goldson a pile of guaranteed money next season, so Joe hopes Goldson will devote himself this offseason to changing his tackling instincts. Because there’s no chance of any kind of NFL rule change that will benefit defensive backs and lessen the league’s focus on avoiding head injuries.
November 27th, 2013 at 11:08 am
I think defenders should just talk the offensive player into going to the ground. Now we get to watch piles of men moving down the field trying to get the guy down. Time for the two hand touch rule!
November 27th, 2013 at 11:25 am
The question is…….will Goldson recieve a suspension every time he commits a PF…..or will the next one be a fine….I don’t really mind the fines (hurts only Goldson)….and the penalty yards hurt but are sometimes offset by the agressive play of the entire defense…..but the suspension hurts the entire team.
I think Goldson will learn instinctivly to change his target…the problem is that I think the refs have a smaller target area for him and him alone….
November 27th, 2013 at 12:26 pm
I want to see him lay one giant CLEAN hit.
November 27th, 2013 at 1:56 pm
this is why soft/sissified men shouldn’t cover tough/manly sports. to suggest that this kid needs to go relearn tackling just shows you’ve never been in that type of situation. or if you have, it’s been so long that you don’t remember what its like. these personal fouls are a racket. knowing as dashon said, these are world class athletes going full speed, you can’t avoid the inevitable when a collision needs to occur. and the league is getting pretty dollars with these fines. you are endorsing part of a culture that is making this game have an estrogen-like feel to it. stop putting sugar into the nfl’s tank. its time that you journalists and pundits start doing what all nfl coaches wish you would do. call out this stupid personal foul crap. hold the nfl accountable for changing the game for the worse. it’s affecting outcomes of games. its giving teams and players such as drew brees, to happily play “victim to victory”. remember the clayborn hit on brees? remember the hit he recently took against san fran that also got a crap call for (stopping the quarterback, defense) sacking bree? the saints got 2 victories from these bogus personal foul calls. in both instances, both players were playing to their potential and were penalized for doing a great job by sacking a pretty elusive qb. start calling out this culture of putting sugar into the tank of the nfl before it becmoes unbearable for real men to watch anymore. especially ex players of this beloved game. what’s dashon supposed to start doing? letting the recievers catch the ball? his job is to break up passes…. he’s a safety. a defensive back.. their job? DEFEND the pass. not tackle cautiosly… man… yall are killing us
November 27th, 2013 at 2:00 pm
please pardon the mispelled word and the (s) off of brees last name… i was typing away quite passionately
November 27th, 2013 at 2:52 pm
Goldson is not the only safety struggling with this rule. it’s like lowering every speed limit in the country 15 mph for safety purposes – a lot of people who have been driving those roads all their lives are going to get tickets early in the process until they successfully learn the new behavior. i understand the purpose of these rules but you are going to see fewer and fewer defensive players finishing plays and more of these huge fluky plays where a receiver who would’ve been planted into the ground 5+ years ago now pirouettes out of a hesitant tackle and goes the distance.
November 27th, 2013 at 6:10 pm
Joe, I read you all every day but this “Read More” is annoying. If it keeps up i may well read more of something else…
November 27th, 2013 at 6:19 pm
Goodbye to the QB sack. Especially the ones against short QB’s like Drew “Whiny Bitch” Brees.
November 28th, 2013 at 11:13 am
I agree strongly with the comment about the WR’s pirouetting out of soft tackles.
November 28th, 2013 at 5:53 pm
quit complaining about the read more. every change has its pros and cons. in this case, when im looking for a specific article, it helps not to have to scroll past hundreds of lines of text. it shortens the site and makes it load quicker
if he decided to make the change, it was obviously for good reason. get over it