About The Macho Hit

This is one of those debates that isn't likely to advance very far, because it really involves two separate questions.  Let's look at both of them.

1)  Should the hit by Macho be the sort of play that draws a penalty in the NFL? 

This is the big-picture question.  In a game predicated on physical violence, where do you draw the line?

An interesting feature of Macho's hit is that it was not intrinsically dirty.  It was a straight-up, shoulder pad to chest blow, of the type that would be commended were it to be applied anywhere on the field to any ball carrier.  Phil Simms' weird defense of the flag notwithstanding, that was a brutal, but clean type of hit.

With that said, such a blow is not legal in all situations.  Apply that hit to an offensive lineman hanging around a pile -- even if the progressively later whistles haven't blown yet -- and you're going to get a 15-yard penalty.  So once we concede the situational appropriateness of the penalty, then it's just a question of definining the situations.

In this case, the answer is determined by the name of the infraction: "unnecessary" roughness.  That is, the roughness itself may be legal, but only if it's necessary to the completion of the play.

Clearly, the roughness wasn't necessary.  A much gentler push would have taken the receiver out of the play just as easily as the brutal hit did. 

And Macho's sole remaining defense -- that he couldn't have stopped himself -- is defeated by his own description of the play, in which he speaks of making a decision to make the hit he did.  He wasn't already in the air.

Football is a violent sport.  That violence may be its biggest draw.  But given the risks the players are taking on the field just to be out there, it is not at all inappropriate to outlaw any action not necessary to the play itself. 

2)  Given the way the rulebook actually is enforced, was this a defensible call?  That is, could you look at the universe of calls made this year and argue this wasn't an outlier. 

I think the answer here is also clearly yes, unless the target of the play was Donovan McNabb, in which case Macho would have had to shoot him as well to actually draw a flag.

More and more, the NFL is cracking down on borderline late hits.  If there's any argument over whether the defensive player could have avoided the contact, they're throwing that flag, especially out on the edges of the field, where multiple officials can see what happens.

As well, there are now so many "points of emphasis," that the officials have much stronger legislative support for what they're doing.  It's not just "unnecessary roughness," it's also a "defenseless receiver."  Add a few of these together, and the benefit of the doubt is always going to go towards throwing the flag.

Note, too, that you can reject argument #1 above, but still be forced to concede argument #2.  Maybe you believe the NFL has gone overboard with this stuff.  I'd actually agree with you, especially concerning quarterbacks.  It's stupid that any kind of contact to the head is a penalty, even if it's just a love tap, just as it's nearly impossible for a DE to properly calibrate the amount of force he needs to use to "gently" bring down a QB like Big Ben, who may actually outweigh him. 

But even if the NFL is "wrong" to draw the lines the way it has, those lines have still been drawn.  Was Macho's hit borderline?  Yeah, it was, but borderline is getting called more and more these days.

I'm still much more upset about the call McNabb didn't get against the Panthers than I am about the one Denver got yesterday.