Nebraska's Nate Gerry Penalty Proves It's Time to Tackle the Lawlessness of Targeting Calls

I agree that the targeting rule is definitely something that is harming players from doing their job. It also needs to be changed. Officials should be held accountable for bad calls and the actual penalty needs more clarification.

But it does need to exist. There is a reason it is in place and it does prevent injuries. The gray area is the problem and officials being unwilling to admit when at fault.

 
It's a vague rule and the referees would rather play it safe than sorry. They'd be in a lot more trouble if they missed a targeting call instead of incorrectly calling one.

The most frustrating part about all this is the replay failure. I think most people watching that play saw a clean hit, and I bet many fans (myself included) were sitting there watching the game thinking the call would be overturned as soon as the officials saw it again.

 
The fact a replay was used and the officials still got the call wrong is what makes this specific instance so infuriating. Clearly there needs to be a standard set so this type of thing stops handcuffing players.

 
1995 Redux said:
The fact a replay was used and the officials still got the call wrong is what makes this specific instance so infuriating. Clearly there needs to be a standard set so this type of thing stops handcuffing players.
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It's become so controversial, you almost wonder if some outside source needs to be responsible for reviewing plays in the moment.

The NFL reviews every scoring play in New York as it happens. If this targeting rule really is that big of a deal, does something similar need to happen now, too? Do we need a group of people at the NCAA office just hanging around waiting for a targeting foul to come across their screens?

I know that may sound silly but individual refereeing crews are dropping the ball big time on this. I don't remember a rule, in my lifetime, that's been so inconsistently interpreted by different crews.

 
Enhance89 said:
1995 Redux said:
The fact a replay was used and the officials still got the call wrong is what makes this specific instance so infuriating. Clearly there needs to be a standard set so this type of thing stops handcuffing players.
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It's become so controversial, you almost wonder if some outside source needs to be responsible for reviewing plays in the moment.
The NFL reviews every scoring play in New York as it happens. If this targeting rule really is that big of a deal, does something similar need to happen now, too? Do we need a group of people at the NCAA office just hanging around waiting for a targeting foul to come across their screens?

I know that may sound silly but individual refereeing crews are dropping the ball big time on this. I don't remember a rule, in my lifetime, that's been so inconsistently interpreted by different crews.
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Gerry made a conscious effort to turn his head and avoid helmet to helmet contact, even that should have been obvious on the replay. But this year the f'ing amateurs that are refing these games are making/missing a ton of calls. These slobs should be penalized as well, by sitting out a game and having to observe other refs and reading the rules more closely, targeting involves willful intent to injury a player, Gerry was not targeting!

 
[SIZE=10.5pt]While I don't agree with Gerry getting ejected for his hit, I think your article misses some key points. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt] [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt]First, Gerry wasn't ejected for hitting with the crown of the helmet. There are two different rules for targeting: Targeting and Making Forcible Contact With the Crown of the Helmet (Rule 9-1-3) and Targeting and Making Forcible Contact to Head or Neck Area of a Defenseless Player (Rule 9-1-4). Gerry was ejected for the second rule and while I don’t’ agree with him being ejected for the hit, he certainly made helmet to helmet contact with the receiver in both videos.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt] [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt]Second, as a football official, I don't think that negative press is scaring referees into doing their jobs properly. I think most referees are doing the best they can with the rule book that they have been given. To say that we need to scrap the targeting rule because it is being applied too strictly in the name of player safety is ridiculous. If the NCAA wants to work for the safety of the players they won’t eliminate the rule all together, but continue making incremental changes until it’s being applied more appropriately and consistently. Howeva….[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt] [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt]Many of the calls that officials make are subjective. Holding, pass interference, and targeting all require officials to make split second decisions on whether or not to throw the flag and sometimes mistakes are made but the official should always err on the side of player safety. Everybody should care more about player safety, instead of poo-pooing torn ligaments, broken clavicles and players carted off the field on stretchers. People’s lives can be ruined from concussions and the issue shouldn’t be taken lightly.[/SIZE]

 
Part of the problem is that, even though the rule prohibits "targeting", it's actually used by the officials to penalize hard hits. The officials tend penalize players more harshly for a hard hit[SIZE=12pt]—[/SIZE]even when it's a clean hit[SIZE=12pt]—[/SIZE]than for a tackle that doesn't blow the guy up. If Gerry's hit in the UCLA game hadn't been a slobberknocker of a hit, he would not likely have been penalized with targeting. His head was off to the side and he hit the guy with his shoulder. The targeting rule is a BS rule that's in place to protect players[SIZE=12pt]—[/SIZE]which is a good thing. But it's totally arbitrary. Probably a quarter of the tackles made during any game could be tagged as targeting due to incidental contact between helmets. But they're not called as such unless it's a hard hit.

 
If Gerry was ejected for targeting a defenseless player, we need to look at that definition. A receiver diving or jumping and missing a catch is a defenseless player, and hitting a player after the ball is not caught should be enforced. But a player catching a ball and turning up field should not be considered a defenseless player.

 
worldsworstoutdoorsman said:
[SIZE=10.5pt]While I don't agree with Gerry getting ejected for his hit, I think your article misses some key points. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt] [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt]First, Gerry wasn't ejected for hitting with the crown of the helmet. There are two different rules for targeting: Targeting and Making Forcible Contact With the Crown of the Helmet (Rule 9-1-3) and Targeting and Making Forcible Contact to Head or Neck Area of a Defenseless Player (Rule 9-1-4). Gerry was ejected for the second rule and while I don’t’ agree with him being ejected for the hit, he certainly made helmet to helmet contact with the receiver in both videos.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt] [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt]Second, as a football official, I don't think that negative press is scaring referees into doing their jobs properly. I think most referees are doing the best they can with the rule book that they have been given. To say that we need to scrap the targeting rule because it is being applied too strictly in the name of player safety is ridiculous. If the NCAA wants to work for the safety of the players they won’t eliminate the rule all together, but continue making incremental changes until it’s being applied more appropriately and consistently. Howeva….[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt] [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt]Many of the calls that officials make are subjective. Holding, pass interference, and targeting all require officials to make split second decisions on whether or not to throw the flag and sometimes mistakes are made but the official should always err on the side of player safety. Everybody should care more about player safety, instead of poo-pooing torn ligaments, broken clavicles and players carted off the field on stretchers. People’s lives can be ruined from concussions and the issue shouldn’t be taken lightly.[/SIZE]
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"Targeting" should be just that: Targeting! Gerry wasn't "targeting" that player with the intent of illegally injuring him. It was a tackle and their helmets unavoidably hit. It's football. It's a collision sport. That's why they wear helmets. On replay, somebody should have seen Gerry's tackle for the perfectly executed form tackle it was. Even Jim Mora knew it wasn't targeting. Does anybody think he would have been on the sideline joshing it up with Gerry if Gerry was trying to injure his players?

Sometimes I wonder how boxing or MMA even still exist as sports. People who worry so much about concussions in football should take some of their concern to those sports where the purpose is to concuss your opponent.

 
"Targeting" should be just that: Targeting! Gerry wasn't "targeting" that player with the intent of illegally injuring him. It was a tackle and their helmets unavoidably hit. It's football. It's a collision sport. That's why they wear helmets. On replay, somebody should have seen Gerry's tackle for the perfectly executed form tackle it was. Even Jim Mora knew it wasn't targeting. Does anybody think he would have been on the sideline joshing it up with Gerry if Gerry was trying to injure his players?

Sometimes I wonder how boxing or MMA even still exist as sports. People who worry so much about concussions in football should take some of their concern to those sports where the purpose is to concuss your opponent.
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You can make your argument with a lot of rules can't you?

"Holding" should be just that: Holding!

Again, I don't think he should have been penalized for the UCLA hit, but I also can see how it could have been called in that split second.

If boxing and MMA had the participation levels that football does at all age levels there certainly would be people trying to clean them up.

 
worldsworstoutdoorsman said:
"Targeting" should be just that: Targeting! Gerry wasn't "targeting" that player with the intent of illegally injuring him. It was a tackle and their helmets unavoidably hit. It's football. It's a collision sport. That's why they wear helmets. On replay, somebody should have seen Gerry's tackle for the perfectly executed form tackle it was. Even Jim Mora knew it wasn't targeting. Does anybody think he would have been on the sideline joshing it up with Gerry if Gerry was trying to injure his players?

Sometimes I wonder how boxing or MMA even still exist as sports. People who worry so much about concussions in football should take some of their concern to those sports where the purpose is to concuss your opponent.
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You can make your argument with a lot of rules can't you?

"Holding" should be just that: Holding!

Again, I don't think he should have been penalized for the UCLA hit, but I also can see how it could have been called in that split second.

If boxing and MMA had the participation levels that football does at all age levels there certainly would be people trying to clean them up.
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But "Holding" doesn't rely on replay, and players aren't ejected for it. That's a big difference. I can live with bad penalties, which happen every game. I'm not ok with players being thrown out of games, ostensibly for playing dirty, when they're not. It's a much bigger issue in my opinion.

 
NUance nails it. Had he let the player gain a yard, then chucked him Suh style out of bounds, he would have been fine.

Even though he made a fundamentally sound tackle, it was penalized because it was executed in a big way. The official got a second look and refused to over turn it because doing so might result in them actually gettinf in trouble. Upholding it was safer for them.

 
But "Holding" doesn't rely on replay, and players aren't ejected for it. That's a big difference. I can live with bad penalties, which happen every game. I'm not ok with players being thrown out of games, ostensibly for playing dirty, when they're not. It's a much bigger issue in my opinion.
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Understandable.

 
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