Iggles Blog - Philadelphia Eagles Blog

Dumbest Rule Ever

The new "no spiking" rule, which one imagines was implemented to give officials a break from chasing down the ball after every single play, is pretty typical of the modern NFL mindset.  Ignore the intent, legislate the action.  It's what you get when you have an institution run mostly by lawyers. 

As expected, there are a number of problems with the rule, summarized nicely here.  On Sunday, we saw another example of how dumb the enforcement of this rule can be, when the Ravens' Derrick Mason received a five-yard delay of game penalty for spiking the football after a play on which he was injured:

Watch the video and see what you think.  Was his intent to delay the game?  Clearly not.  Was he taunting anyone?  Again, not at all.  He was rolling on the field in pain and then limped off the field grabbing his knee.

Part (most?) of being a referee is showing good judgment.  Not on this play.

Chargers Suck

Plenty of issues with this team, but who the hell is calling plays for this outfit?*  They've got the best running back in the league and they don't come out running the football right away, they don't go for it on fourth-and-short when they're already down 17-0 and they don't run the ball on third-and-friggin' short when they're in no-brainer four-down territory, preferring instead to let Rivers throw a short pass against a defense that's already in his head.

*Yes, I know it's Norv Turner.

Yeah, That Didn't Look Good

When I first went to read the "apology" from Bill Belichick, the Patriots had an action shot of Rodney Harrison lining the left-hand border of the page.  It's since been changed to Tom Brady.

Guess they thought it looked bad having the two cheaters right next to each other, as well.

I also notice ESPN is running a video of the "tuck rule" game on Sports Guy's page.  So what is that, like the last time the league's interpretation of its rules agreed with the Patriots'?

Are the Patriots Cheaters?

ESPN's Chris Mortensen (via PFT):

NFL security confiscated a video camera and its tape from a New England Patriots employee on the team's sideline during Sunday's game against the Jets in a suspected spying incident, sources said...

The Patriots' cameraman was suspected of aiming his camera at the Jets' defensive coaches who were sending signals to their unit on the field, the sources said. The league also is investigating some radio frequency issues that occurred during the game...

"It's not their first time," a member of the committee, who did not wish to be identified, said.

In fact, Green Bay Packers president Bob Harlan confirmed a similar incident that occurred when the Patriots played at Lambeau Field last Nov. 19. The same cameraman who was questioned by NFL security on Sunday was also the one whom the Packers removed from the sideline and escorted from the field during their 2006 game, according to Packers security official Doug Collins.

So How Bad Are the Saints?

Stupid Stupid Stupid.  Man, I hate when I'm this stupid.

Last week I was all set to do a post about how the Saints looked to me like a team that was set to regress.  I had a lot of points to make, but the catalyst was a preseason game I watched (I think this one, for Poz-related reasons) in which seemingly every single ball Drew Brees threw came off a three-step-drop-and-bam timing that seemed way too conservative and predictable.  The announcers were all raving about his accuracy, but it was like, well yeah, he's only throwing it five yards downfield.

Stupidly, however, because I'm stupid and also because my schedule was a little crunched, I decided to be stupid and not to write the thing up.  After tonight's poor showing against the Colts, that decision ends up looking a little, well, stupid.

My problem with the Saints isn't the headliners.  Brees is a very good quarterback, Bush continues to be overrated but dangerous, and Colston had another catch tonight that demonstrated once again just how good his hands are (although it wasn't as good as this one).  It's the rest of the team.  When you're counting on guys like Mark Simoneau to play major roles, you have talent issues.  There's no way around it.

Speaking of Simoneau, did you see how many times he got blown up tonight?  I wasn't recording the game, so I can't put a video together, but there was one play where he got pinballed between blockers harder than I think I've ever seen a linebacker hit.  He still plays with a great motor though.  You have to credit the effort.

Last year the Saints had a lot going for them: lots of goodwill, a hot young coach and a low profile that allowed them to sneak up on a bunch of people.  This time around they're going to have to earn every victory.  As tonight's game showed, there could be some rough patches. 

Other teams have already done their own film work on the Saints, but tonight Indy laid out for the slackers a perfect gameplan for controlling the New Orleans' attack:

1. Stop the run.
2. Don't give up the deep ball.
3. Tackle well.

And that's pretty much it.  Let Brees complete all those passes for the second-lowest yard-per-completion figure in league history, but as long as you execute in all those areas, you can expect good things to happen.

This is why the Eagles had no choice but to overhaul the linebackers this year, by the way.  The typical Jim Johnson defensive plan relies on bringing pressure to force quick passes and mistakes.  The problem with the Saints is that they want to throw quick passes.  If your linebackers can't run, the Saints will eat you up by turning short gains into long ones.  And once you start trying to compensate in the middle of the field, that's when they get you deep. 

(The open question, of course, is if the Eagles line can do its job stopping the run.)

Now I don't think the Saints are going to be terrible this year.  They still have an awful lot of weapons, and their division pretty much sucks, but I don't think they're one of the major threats in the conference.  When you're trying to decide between "did those guys overachieve" and "did every other team just cut those guys because they're stupid and the Saints are really smart" I think you pretty much have to go with option #1 over the long run.

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While we're at it, I'm not making the same mistake again, so here are my nutshell predictions for the rest of the conference:

• The Vikings are going to be better than anyone expects.  They have a very solid defense and the offensive players are now in their second year in Brad Childress' system.  Second-year quarterback Tarvaris Jackson is a major concern, but if he struggles early Childress can go to Kelly Holcomb, who still looked like a guy capable of managing games during his brief time with the Eagles this year.  With that defense -- and if Adrian Peterson can avoid breaking any more bones for awhile -- that might be more than enough to make the playoffs.
• In the west, I like the Seahawks over the Niners.  How is Seattle this year all that different from the Eagles last year?  They're two years removed from the Super Bowl and returning a whole bunch of players who struggled with injuries last year, including Shawn Alexander and Mr. We're Gonna Score.  I think this is the year the Niners' young players "find out how hard it really is to be successful in the NFL," but watch out for them in 2008.
• On the homefront, I'm more worried about the Redskins than the Cowboys.  It's not just Tony Romo, you can say whatever you want about how big a jerk Bill Parcells is, but the man can coach.  I'm just not buying the idea that he was what was holding that team back.  Washington might have the best defense in the division.  If Jason Campbell progresses to the extent I think he will this year, the offense isn't going to be easy to handle either.  It's almost too bad we face them twice so early in the year. 

That's probably a good place to stop.  Should be more than enough ammunition for you all to use against me in three months...

Rules Question

Near the end of the first half, with the Saints out of timeouts, Drew Brees avoided a sack by shoveling the ball forward to his left guard, Jamar Nesbit.  The refs called the obligatory illegal touching penalty, since Nesbit wasn't an eligible receiver, but that's just a five-yard hit.  More importantly, the penalty stopped the clock.  Had Brees been sacked, there may not have been time to run another play.

Now if this is the correct call, that's a really smart play by Brees.  If he just chucks it away, it's intentional grounding.  If he takes the sack, the half is over. 

But that call doesn't seem like it should be right.  Otherwise, quarterbacks in danger of getting sacked should just fire the ball at the nearest offensive lineman.  Shawn Andrews is always angling to play tight end anyway.

I consulted my copy of the NFL rulebook -- yes, I have a copy of the NFL rulebook, but in fairness it's a couple years old -- and what I found is a little ambiguous.  There is nothing in the rule on intentional grounding (Rule 8-3-1) that mentions an eligible receiver:

"Intentional grounding will be called when a passer, facing an imminent loss of yardage because of pressure from the defense, throws a forward pass without a realistic chance of completion."

But the rule that covers illegal touching (8-1-5) contains a reference that says:

"Note 1: See 8-3-1 for intentional grounding."

The problem is that the rulebook available to the public isn't the real rulebook.  The league's bible has a lot more information on various situations that can come up and might have more information about this particular situation.

Anyone have any light they can shed here?  And note as well that this situation has nothing to do with the illegal touching offseason rule change because it wasn't an accidental touch.

Holcomb to the Vikings

For an undisclosed (PFT: 6th-round) draft pick. 

He seemed like a decent guy.  Hopefully he has more success in the move than Billy McMullen did.

Best Commercial I've Ever Seen

This is unreal.

Whither the Umpire?

While I was watching the Cowboys/Colts game tonight, I noticed something weird.  In the middle of the field, between the linebackers, there was ... nothing.  Just empty space.  Which is really strange, since usually that's where the umpire would be standing. 

At first I thought maybe the umpire had gotten hurt and I'd missed it or perhaps it had something to do with preseason scheduling.  But a couple of plays later I realized he was standing behind and to the side of the quarterback, just like the referee was doing, but on the other side. 

Weird.  I hadn't heard anything about a switch for their positioning and a Google search found nothing on the topic.  I can only guess that perhaps this is a rule change the league has been considering for a few years and so they've decided to try it out during the preseason to see how it works. 

In some ways it makes a lot of sense, since the increasing popularity of crossing routes and the horizontal passing game has more often put those guys directly in the line of fire.  We have also seen some nasty collisions the last few years involving those officials. 

At any rate, I'm still keeping an eye out for an official word on what was up.  If you see anything, drop me a line in the comments.

***

Bonus point.  As I was searching for the umpire thing, I came across the following change in the rules for 2007:

Referees will also make it a point of emphasis to have players button each chin strap. There will be no penalties enforced for failure to comply, but the player may be requested to leave the game for one play.

Hmmm... who do we know who does that?

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UPDATE: Check the comments for an explanation on the umpire.

Ranking the Refs

Here's an entertaining look at how different officiating crews call games in the NFL over at Cold Hard Football facts.  The differences are striking:

Ron Winter led the crew that called the most penalties. Controversial Walt Coleman led the crew that called the fewest. The difference was huge: Winter's crew tossed 83 more flags than Coleman's crew over the course of a 15-game officiating season, resulting in nearly 600 more penalty yards.

As for my personal pet peeve:

If you want to throw the lumber around, [Coleman] doesn't mind – he called a league-low one roughing the passer penalty (the average was 5.6) and a league-low three unneccesary roughness penalties. Hochuli, on the other hand, called a league-high 11 roughing the passers and 16 unnecessary roughnesses...