Thread for Things That Made You Frown Today

[Latrinsorm]

You do notice that the 1995 rule section refers entirely to helmet to helmet, right? It's not until 2009 that hitting the head (with anything) is prohibited.

[4a6c1]

She sent me a completely false LinkedIn profile one time. I was pretty insulted.

Laughed out loud. I actually did this before. To Anticor. I sent him some poor Gemstone womans Facebook link and with a statement like "HEY LETS BE BFFS IRL" and I'm pretty sure he was freaked out enough for 7 lifetimes because he wrote me this long ass PM about how he doesn't use facebook before I had the chance to say hey dude, itsa joke. It's not true btw, all you fuckers have giant giant online profiles including facebook. Except Buckwheat and a few of those snarky Shattered hacktivists. I don't understand why Linux users hate facebook, or I guess I do. There's also a few members here who have a completely wiped online profile which is SUPER INTERESTING. But then there's always archived server and usenet. (Dat pixel.) Internets be bad yo.

Alex I thought I donated to your lung cancer marathon? Or was that someone else? I can't remember to be honest, I've donated to every cause anyone has ever posted on PC.

[Sarika]

I regret my openness back in the old livejournal days.

My FB account has too many people on it and everyone pretty much knows what I'm up to, thanks for my facebook-happy colleagues who post up photos of me during some work events and then I go, "omg, am I really that fat?"... and the answer is always, sadly, yes because I joined a work team whose primary goal in life appears to be locating interesting foods and eat lots of it.

Oh another reason to be frowny today.

Damn all-you-can-eat-buffet team outings! Ah well, it was still fun outings.

oh one more reason to frown today: a lot football talk in the frowny thread.

Hahaha!!!

[subzero]

Well, here's the announcement of the rule:

Players will be prohibited from "launching" (leaving both feet prior to contact to spring forward and upward into an opponent or using any part of the helmet to initiate forcible contact against any part of the opponent’s body) to level a defenseless player, as well as "forcibly hitting the neck or head area with the helmet, facemask, forearm or shoulder regardless of whether the defensive player also uses his arms to tackle the defenseless player by encircling or grasping him.", and lowering the head and make forcible contact with the top/crown or forehead/"hairline" parts of the helmet against any part of the defenseless player’s body. Offenders will be penalized 15 yards for unnecessary roughness and ejected from the game if the contact is deemed flagrant."

Although spearing has been illegal forever, they still stress "forcibly hitting the neck or head area" and making "contact with the... helmet".

"That would be the two things that you’re protected for when you are a defenseless player, which means think of it as two protections. Number one, can’t hit me in the head, head or neck area. And number two, you can’t hit me with your head. You can’t take your head and bury it into me because -I haven’t had an opportunity to defend [myself]"

Sounds good, right? Well, the issue is that it's pretty hard to make these calls properly when things are going on in real-time. I'm fine with stuff like launching and intentional helmet to helmet hits being illegal, but I'm simply not a fan of the concept of a defenseless receiver. This hit was flagged, yet prior to changes to the definition of a defenseless receiver, it would not have been (and shouldn't have been even today):



Why was this a penalty? The point of contact was Lewis' right shoulder. He did not launch nor did he strike the receiver with his head. Yes, his head touched him, but how the hell can you play the game and not have that happen? You might say it was a penalty because their heads collided ((2) Lowering the head and making forcible contact with the top/crown or forehead/”hairline” parts of the helmet against any part of the defenseless player’s body), however "The provisions of (2) do not prohibit incidental contact by the mask or helmet in the course of a conventional tackle on an opponent". If that's not the picture of a conventional tackle, I dunno what is. I believe this play was flagged due to the fear of and over-concern for injury. It looked bad; dude caught the ball and got popped. That's football (or used to be).

I couldn't get any good pics of the hit on Welker that they flagged, but it looked legit when I saw it live.

Now, we have the following play that was not flagged despite the fuckin dude 1) launching and 2) hitting the receiver helmet to helmet:



Awesome. Do the refs not know the rules, not see well enough, or are they Pats fans (I don't really think it's a Pats bias, but it's pretty obvious that should have been an illegal hit and then there's the whole issue of Brady kicking Reed during his 'slide' and not being flagged. If that had been someone named Suh, there'd have been a flag and fine)?

With all that said, I was primarily responding to your broader expounding, ending with "Don't wanna hurt anybody.". We are aware now of the real consequences of brain damage from football, and one consequence of that is that there will be a stronger emphasis on safety.

The game is not safe. Every man taking that field knows that he risks injuries ranging from minor wounds to various career enders and even to the loss of life (obviously not common at all, but it can happen). The league is being overly protective because, unfortunately, we live in a world where you can't kill and eat a rat on TV (cruelty to animals, zomg!) and nothing bad should happen to anyone, for whatever reason, ever. They can also apparently be sued (got a couple hundred, you can sue anyone for anything, really) by former players who are now showing the effects of playing and claiming they either didn't know it was going to happen (duh, we can run into other people at full speed for years and suffer no effects down the road, der der der) or the league didn't do enough to prevent it. Don't think this whole safety push lately isn't about money.

Here's the million dollar question, though: How many of these guys have quit 'now' that we know getting your head knocked around is a good way to cause lasting damage? It's pretty disingenuous to claim that this sort of knowledge is new, but let's just assume no one had any fucking clue. How many have quit in light of these findings out of concern for their own safety?

I'm a fan of personal responsibility. Here in Florida and I'm sure other states as well, helmet use is no longer required of motorcyclists. I think it's pretty stupid to not wear one, myself, but then again I'm not a fan of the risks involved in riding a motorcycle with or without a helmet. I don't ride them. The players obviously haven't been concerned about the rules and the way the game was played. These guys know the risks. They take the field anyway. Just like I have no sympathy for someone being shot and killed if they elect to unlawfully enter someone else's home, a racecar driver smashing into a wall and becoming part of it, a skydiver making a crater, etc, I have no sympathy here, either. If the game was declining due to players not wanting to play any longer, fine. I could certainly see making changes so that players are comfortable with the rules. I'm not seeing players stay away from the game because of the dangers it presents. On the other hand, you can be certain that defensive players are frustrated by and don't like a good deal of the changes being made these days. That should say something.

Maybe I'm biased due to being a big fan of defense and the way it's traditionally been played (hit the dude so hard he doesn't WANT the ball next time and can't hold it this time, make players fear being in your area, etc), but I think they're starting to get carried away with some of this stuff.

[Gnome Rage]

WTF. My biscuits and gravy pack didn't have biscuits. Just gravy. I ain't honey boo boo just shoveling gravy down my throat.

I laughed for a solid thirty-five second at the image of honeybooboos face on your body with a party dress on, tap shoes, chugging a gravy boat

[Showal]

Laughed out loud. I actually did this before. To Anticor. I sent him some poor Gemstone womans Facebook link and with a statement like "HEY LETS BE BFFS IRL" and I'm pretty sure he was freaked out enough for 7 lifetimes because he wrote me this long ass PM about how he doesn't use facebook before I had the chance to say hey dude, itsa joke. It's not true btw, all you fuckers have giant giant online profiles including facebook. Except Buckwheat and a few of those snarky Shattered hacktivists. I don't understand why Linux users hate facebook, or I guess I do. There's also a few members here who have a completely wiped online profile which is SUPER INTERESTING. But then there's always archived server and usenet. (Dat pixel.) Internets be bad yo.

Alex I thought I donated to your lung cancer marathon? Or was that someone else? I can't remember to be honest, I've donated to every cause anyone has ever posted on PC.

You are probably correct!

[Delias]

Laughed out loud. I actually did this before. To Anticor. I sent him some poor Gemstone womans Facebook link and with a statement like "HEY LETS BE BFFS IRL" and I'm pretty sure he was freaked out enough for 7 lifetimes because he wrote me this long ass PM about how he doesn't use facebook before I had the chance to say hey dude, itsa joke. It's not true btw, all you fuckers have giant giant online profiles including facebook. Except Buckwheat and a few of those snarky Shattered hacktivists. I don't understand why Linux users hate facebook, or I guess I do. There's also a few members here who have a completely wiped online profile which is SUPER INTERESTING. But then there's always archived server and usenet. (Dat pixel.) Internets be bad yo.

Alex I thought I donated to your lung cancer marathon? Or was that someone else? I can't remember to be honest, I've donated to every cause anyone has ever posted on PC.

Look deeper- I have pictures of myself naked on the internet as a stop-gap measure. Once you encounter them, you will be done looking into me until your retinas heal.

[msconstrew]

Welcome to the Great White Nort'.

2013-01-22_07-20-04_698.jpg

(It was -5 when I went for a run this morning, but I didn't have my phone then) (the run didn't last long)

[Delias]

Sick child, no sleep, covering an early morning shift, no coffee.

[AnticorRifling]

Laughed out loud. I actually did this before. To Anticor. I sent him some poor Gemstone womans Facebook link and with a statement like "HEY LETS BE BFFS IRL" and I'm pretty sure he was freaked out enough for 7 lifetimes because he wrote me this long ass PM about how he doesn't use facebook before I had the chance to say hey dude, itsa joke. It's not true btw, all you fuckers have giant giant online profiles including facebook. Except Buckwheat and a few of those snarky Shattered hacktivists. I don't understand why Linux users hate facebook, or I guess I do. There's also a few members here who have a completely wiped online profile which is SUPER INTERESTING. But then there's always archived server and usenet. (Dat pixel.) Internets be bad yo.

Alex I thought I donated to your lung cancer marathon? Or was that someone else? I can't remember to be honest, I've donated to every cause anyone has ever posted on PC.

I thought I just sent you a PM that said don't cyber me bro I don't use facebook (and I don't).