New NFL Rules And The Bucs
August 3rd, 2018
Will America be safer?
Something interesting here, at least in Joe’s mind.
Yeah, last year stunk for Bucs fans. High hopes were dashed early in the season when the Bucs got the snot knocked out of them physically at Minnesota. Curb-stomped.
Word is that game is when America’s Quarterback, Pro Bowlers Jameis Winston, first hurt his throwing shoulder. Of course, the Bucs won’t talk about that and when Joe asked Jameis point-blank when Jameis appeared on the “Ira Kaufman Podcast” this summer, Jameis never denied it.
When Chander Jones landed on Jameis after a pass attempt in the Arizona beatdown later in the season, it took Jameis out of game. He later re-injured the shoulder on a hit by Alex Okafor at New Orleans that put him on the shelf for three games. Interestingly, the hit by Jones was very similar to the hit Minnesota linebacker Anthony Barr put on Aaron Rodgers that knocked the Packers’ stud quarterback out for much of the season.
The only difference Joe can see in the two hits is that Carr had two steps on Rodgers after Rodgers released the ball. Jones seems as if he just got one step on Jameis after Jameis released the ball.
The reason why Joe brings this up is that referees are making training camp tour stops across the NFL landscape to give orientations to players and coaches alike about the new NFL not-so-hard rules. Basically, tackling is slowly being removed from the game, as if players already didn’t wrap up properly wasn’t enough.
Well, at Green Bay’s camp, Packers’ ESPN beat guy and overall great dude Rob Demovsky learned from visiting referees that Barr’s hit on Rodgers would now be considered a penalty.
Unknown is whether Jones’ hit on Jameis now be considered a penalty as well? Demovsky went on to note that it is now illegal “to land on a QB with all of [the player’s] body weight.
If you think it is going to be fun figuring out what a tackle is, what about trying to figure out how much body weight a tackler puts on a ballcarrier??
Savvy former NFL suit Louis Riddick of BSPN believes we are due to see an explosion of offense this year because dudes are going to be scared to tackle for fear of either getting a personal foul or tossed out of a game.
August 3rd, 2018 at 10:12 am
This is the main reason I cancelled my season tix for next year. This isn’t football anymore, it’s ass grabbing.
August 3rd, 2018 at 10:17 am
Even in two hand touch football the team with the baddest line usually wins…one side still gets a physical edge even when it’s just pushing and shoving.
I’m not yet ready to see the sky as falling. The league HAS to do something because the lawsuits are piling up and if they don’t appear to be proactive it’s not going to play well in the courtroom.
We’ll see how that plays out on the field but just remember…just beyond the field is the courtroom and that may have as much as anything to do with the rules as anything.
Of course notice I haven’t mentioned societal guilt for turning men into veggies later in life…sometimes suicidal…certainly not healthy. But hey did the Romans worry when a Gladiator had an arm cut off?
It’s the cost of doing business and there is a libertarian argument to be made that these guys know exactly what they are signing up for and many would make the deal even if they knew they would get CTE. Football is an intoxicating mistress to both players and fans.
August 3rd, 2018 at 10:19 am
The NFL sure is making it easier for me to get out on golf course. Sunday afternoon that is.
August 3rd, 2018 at 10:23 am
Refs have always loved to come to town and torment the Bucs and their fans…
August 3rd, 2018 at 10:23 am
It seems the NFL wants players to play like they’re wearing leather helmets and stop flying at guys to knock a ball loose. I love watching football but I’m glad the concussion-inducing head shots are becoming a thing of the past. Only the slack-jawed mouth breathers that reminisce about the good ol days of football want to see those hits without any regard for the players’ health.
August 3rd, 2018 at 10:29 am
Call me a slack-jawed mouth breather…..I can take it.
August 3rd, 2018 at 10:33 am
yeah last night during the ravens and bears game, the ravens safety made a great play on the ball and delivered a big hit….it draw a flag but even the commenters and one of the refs in NY said that should’ve been a flag….
instead of not knowing whats a catch, we wont know whats a tackle….
#NOEXCUSESIN2018!!!!…#PRESSURESONTHECOACHES!!!!…GO BUCS!!!
August 3rd, 2018 at 10:34 am
When I got married over 25 years ago, I told my wife, “I won’t cheat, lie, curse, get drunk or do drugs, but I DO watch football.”
This year I’m going to cancel RedZone and won’t watch games live. I’ll record them if its of interest, but, for the first time since 1976, football has become too frustrating to enjoy.
I turned on the Hall of Fame game last night for two minutes. A DB got flagged for tackling a receiver in the end zone who had leapt into the air. The DB hit him with the shoulder, his facemask moving up (because the receiver was higher than him), knocked the ball out.
Flag.
The CB didn’t lower his head (he couldn’t, the player was higher than him and he was looking up as he hit the receiver), but, flag, because, you know, it was a good hit so something bad must have happened.
The Chris Collinsworth sucked up to his employer, explaining how the bad call was justified.
Unwatchable.
The NFL is the only major business that makes damaging changes to its product without testing it in a “test” environment (minor leagues).
There is something very wrong with a product when, along with every great moment, you expect a flag to take that excitement away.
What are we left with? I don’t know, but it’s not football, and I’m not watching it.
Go Bucs. Or don’t.
August 3rd, 2018 at 10:43 am
Just take away all the hitting and call it soccer already
August 3rd, 2018 at 10:48 am
Can’t wait for a good game day Chucky tirade over this…..
That is guaranteed.
August 3rd, 2018 at 10:50 am
You know what I don’t care what the NFL does, I love my Bucs! I get excited and happy joy joy when they play good and win and bummed out when they don’t. I enjoy reading good stories about them any time of the year. Stupid rule changes don’t matter to me and I don’t care about the NFL and 31 teams just dem Bucs. Men up here crying because of rule changes need to get with the program, change happens all the time deal deal with it because Bucball is always more exciting to watch than scolf or baseball. If you were ever true or real Buc fans it wouldn’t matter. You leave or go play scolf then no loss to us realBuc fans
August 3rd, 2018 at 11:07 am
Actually they are pretty much forced to make some changes. The brain injuries and whatnot are causing kids to be withheld form football.
Some pretty damn sad stories about the condition of former players.
Easy to enjoy “big hits” from the sanctuary of your couch.
August 3rd, 2018 at 11:09 am
It’s Pro-Bowl effort every game! LOL! They laugh all the way to the bank at the sucker fans.
August 3rd, 2018 at 11:11 am
Didn’t even know the Hall of Fame game was one. LOL! They laugh all the way to the bank. Pro-Bowl effort every game with these new rules. In other words, it’s phony.
August 3rd, 2018 at 11:14 am
I wonder if this new rule will reduce sacks or… if close sacks (tackled just after releasing the ball) will be now penalized for late hits when landing on the quarterback? This definitely won’t help the game if there are flags being thrown all the dang time especially with the new rules the refs and players are trying to get used too.
August 3rd, 2018 at 11:15 am
yep…touch ftball is going to be hard to watch..the nfl is taking the tough guy macho out of the game.
August 3rd, 2018 at 11:26 am
@stpete-
“It’s the cost of doing business and there is a libertarian argument to be made that these guys know exactly what they are signing up for and many would make the deal even if they knew they would get CTE. Football is an intoxicating mistress to both players and fans.”
Great take! This is how I knew that you had some writing/media background, statements like this. I’m on to you! 🙂
August 3rd, 2018 at 11:29 am
Exactly how many years ago did MNF pregame show stop showing the segment “He got Jacked Up”……?
The game was built of hard hits and imposing your will on the opponent….the game has changed on so many levels I only follow out of habit…I only watch the Bucs until the Play Off begin…then I’ll watch to see how good football teams play and how far off the Bucs have been and how far they need to go…I am perfectly happy to have the Bucs game on in the house doing whatever’s…then duck in to see what the excitement is about….and I have seen over 250 Bucs games live going back to day 1…
August 3rd, 2018 at 11:30 am
There was an article on nfl.com recently regarding the new rules & the Barr hit on Rodgers, & Barr said: “I hit Jameis Winston the same way a couple weeks prior and nobody made a sound about it.”
Thought that was interesting..
August 3rd, 2018 at 11:30 am
“Demovsky went on to note that it is now illegal “to land on a QB with all of [the player’s] body weight.”
Wait.
Are you telling us that just when our sack issues might be solved, we have new rules to limit them again????
And I have yet to get a straight answer about running backs running with their heads down. Is it illegal now? Sure sounds like it.
In the HoF game, there were a couple penalties called under the new rule, but the penalties made sense.
Given that the refs have had it out for us for years, I have no confidence that they will not leap at anything to beat us down. We have to win despite the refs.
August 3rd, 2018 at 11:33 am
Pete Says
“When I got married over 25 years ago, I told my wife, “I won’t cheat, lie, curse, get drunk or do drugs, but I DO watch football.”
For years, my biggest regret in getting married is that I got married on April 23…and at the time I didn’t think about it at the time (I was more interested in the fact that I got a beautiful woman to actually marry me), but that meant my anniversaries fell right around draft time (until the NFL moved them to later in the year).
I cannot count the number of years my wife complained that I was putting football first. lol
August 3rd, 2018 at 11:36 am
Agreed Eric. It’s easy to want to see bone rattling hits when it’s not your body or your brain being impacted. I laugh at those saying they stopped watching football because of the rule changes.
Sure you did….
August 3rd, 2018 at 11:37 am
stpetebucsfan Says:
“…there is a libertarian argument to be made that these guys know exactly what they are signing up for and many would make the deal even if they knew they would get CTE.”
More than an argument at this point. It is fact. Maybe the players of the distant pass could claim they did not know, but it is drilled into them from an early age these days, and players still play.
That’s why I feel that they should not be able to file a lawsuit claim against the NFL for it. Have them sign a document that warns them of the risks if needed when they are signed.
They make more than most people make even at league minimum. If they handle their finances right, they should be set for life.
I could stretch half a mill over ten years easy…and still be doing well.
August 3rd, 2018 at 11:38 am
I’m all for trying to make aspects of the games safer, but hearing stories I can only think how much worse the NFL product is continuing to get.
It’s a violent game. Players know this.
The league is just introducing more and more subjectivity into officiating, which is only going to lead to more questionable calls and outcomes, further watering down the product which is already not nearly as good as it was even 5 years ago.
@Bonzai – yes this only bodes worse for our Bucs. We already get the short end of the stick in pretty much every single situation. I can’t even imagine how bad it’s going to get with these new rules.
August 3rd, 2018 at 11:40 am
Eric Says
“Actually they are pretty much forced to make some changes. The brain injuries and whatnot are causing kids to be withheld form football.
Some pretty damn sad stories about the condition of former players.
Easy to enjoy “big hits” from the sanctuary of your couch.”
These days, even little league football is very conscious of head injuries, and from that age on, the kids and players are made aware of the risks. Yet they accept those risks to make the money and play the game.
THEY make the decision at that point that it is worth the risks…and for that reason, they should have no right to sue.
August 3rd, 2018 at 11:43 am
I do disagree with Joe on them removing tackling from the game. If anything, they are forcing proper tackling techniques…which is a rare art these days.
I did indeed enjoy watching John Lynch play and hit…but at that point, things started leaning more and more toward hitting instead of tackling.
Now, it is hard to find good tacklers.
August 3rd, 2018 at 11:49 am
I’m not saying they have a right to sue, and it is a valid point that they assume the risk.
But what I am saying is the risk can be reduced and we can enjoy football without people like Scot Brantley not remembering their names anymore.
Ill give up the big helmet hit for that.
August 3rd, 2018 at 11:51 am
Most of the calls that I saw last night were NOT “unnecessary roughness”.
How could the NFL implement a new “rule” like this that so fundamentally changes the game – without some kind of testing??
Every game is going to be a flag fest – and the subjective nature of these calls regarding any type of helmet contact is going to bring the integrity of the games and the refs who are calling them into more serious question than they already are.
August 3rd, 2018 at 11:56 am
Wait till these controversial spearing calls start deciding the outcome of games. Officials can use this as a weapon to fix the outcomes. How many times have we seen very controversial red flags late in the end of a game cause the Bucs to lose? Nothing like ripping defeat from the jaws of victory. Some say, It’s a Buc’s life? BS ..it’s business and the oddsmakers make the rules. It may all seem innocent, and have unintentional consequences, but this is just another tool in the arsenal of any biased officials who wants to manipulate the score of a game.
Yes, we would like to think that referees are unbiased but c’mon no-one is free from some kind of bias. We know some teams are going to be scrutinized more than others just like some players will have a target on their back from the beginning. That’s a bias, that’s player profiling.
August 3rd, 2018 at 12:17 pm
Lets get ready for some………flag football?
The NFL does not realize it yet but they just pooped all over themselves with these inarticulately written rule changes. I give it 2 weeks before a game’s outcome is changed over these new rules.
The good news is…..they will reverse them next off season after fan backlash.
August 3rd, 2018 at 4:01 pm
Im sure the rule will only count against Brady, Rodgers, Brees etc anyway.
August 3rd, 2018 at 6:28 pm
In flag football you could break an arm just reaching for a flag also. How do we make football a non contact sport, give them time the NFL is working on it. The way I see it is that big pay requires big risk.