The Roy Williams Rule?

What will the spin doctors think of next. first we made it easier on the WRs and now you are trying to limit the tackling techniques. How is it legal to grab Ricky Williams by the dreadlocks but Roy cant grab the back of the Jersey. Just keep it up and we will all just watch the AFL. Leave Football alone. There is enough rules. Why dont you guys go pick on baseball, there are still in the who does steroid phase that we went through over a decade ago.

Those spin doctors are all NFL head coaches and GMs. I’d give their opinion some weight, though they sometimes blow it — see the “Emmitt Smith rule” on taking off your helmet.

The trouble with this is that it’s hard to prove intent to injure. I don’t think Williams was, though I do recall he broke Musa Smith’s leg in the Ravens game doing this. And he’s not the only one who does it. The problem comes when a guy grabs another by the shoulders and then comes down with his full weight on the back of the second guys leg. Whether or now they change the rules, offensive players are getting injured, and this is worthy of discussion.

If you eliminate all the injuries in football………you eliminate all the hits, tackles, and excitement.

It is one think to tell a Defensive lineman he cannot take the head off of a QB, it is something else to try to control open field tackling. That was clean hit by Roy. Besides Andy Reid could have sat TO and others for that game. It did not matter for the Eagles anyway.

Besides TO made it back for the Super Bowl and was a factor. Amazing athelete, too bad he has had to play for the 49ers and Eagles.

I don’t have a problem with the TO hit. It’s the Musa Smith hit
which was bornerline. And again, Roy is not the only guy doing it. I’ve seen lots of guys start with this technique of riding a guy down from behind and then landing on the back of their lower legs. Legs get broken that way. And there’s nothing the offensive player can do to protect themselves.

Roy Williams could possibly be my favorite player in the NFL right now because of his ability to knock a player out with his vicious hits, however I really don’t like the “horse collar” type of tackle. I’ve seen him use this tackling technique on many occasions and I never really liked it. I don’t think that is a proper way to tackle someone and you can really hurt a guy by tackling in that manner. I say outlaw it. Roy Williams knows how to hit and I’d rather see him do it the ’old fashined way.

In the Thanksgiving Day game two or three years ago, Lavar Arrington horsecollared Robert Thomas. Snapped his fibula and knocked him out
for the rest of the season. I was livid watching the replays, because it
looked like Arrington had done this on purpose. And because he could
have brought Thomas down without pile driving his leg.

I don’t think Roy Williams is a dirty player and I certainly don’t think this will diminish his hitting. This has nothing to do with big hits. I agree with Bart. It has to do with a style of tackle that is unnecessary.

Williams had to catch TO from behind and grabbed what he could to bring him down. I also saw the Musa Smith tackle, and it’s unfortunate but not dirty. Football’s a dangerus sport.

I think they should just let them play football. It’s a tough sport and people are going to get hurt. The players know what to expect when they go out there and play. If they don’t like it then they should not play

I wished he had torn his ACL loose. Frankly, I thought he did and I cheared very loudly. T.O. is like B.O. ain’t nobody from the south wantin’ it.

Roy Williams probably knew what he was doing when he took him down. He deserves a raise for that play alone. T.O. will have an even tougher time next year vs. the Boys. They’ll be looking for blood next year, and with a goo dfree safety or potentially Hunter making a successful transition, T.O. with get crushed.

I’m sure there are a number of you out there who remenber Thomas Everett. That’s who Keith Davis plays like and even looks like. Although Thomas was a S.S. and Washington was the F.S.. A Davis, Williams combination could be very close by comparison.

John

T.O. stinks like poo! poo!

I’ll weigh in to the discussion with two points: 1) I agree with those that say there is a problem with the form of tackling where defensive players grab a man with their hands and as he’s already going down, jump or intentionally drive their weight onto him. I actually think of Bill Romanowski first when I think of this technique, one Monday night play where he was in pass defense, grabbed a very good player’s arm (can’t remember his name offhand) and essentially while pulling the arm away with his hand, drove himself and the off-balance player back onto the arm as they went down. Maybe some of you will remember better. Anyway, this brings up point 2) — if you’re really trying to stop these dangerous tactics, it’s going to be very hard to word it too specifically. There was no horse-collaring involved in Romanowski’s play on the one hand and on the other, I think that the horse collar technique Williams used on T.O. was a pretty decent and ordinarily not injury-inducing technique. T.O. just was planted awkwardly. It was NOT one of those obviously dangerous tackles where the defender brings extra weight to bear on an already falling man. All of which supports the idea that the league may be best off adding some of these types of tackling to the general rubric of “unnecessary roughness” and then go around to teams before the season showing examples of what kinds of plays might be called — much as they did with pass interference and illegal contact this past year (where they didn’t actually change the rule but just made it clearer what they would enforce). gg

I dislike TO also……….about as much as the Eagles hated Irvin. But if he had a Star on the side of his helmet I would forget all the dancing on the star and other shenninagins. He can flat out play.

Yo, T.o. ain’t nothing but a hood rat with some cash. He needs to re tire and go on back to the hood where he fit rite in.

Arrogant = Attitude with No talent (think Jeremy Shockey)

Confident = Attitude with talent ( think TO, Irvin, Jimmy Johnson our former Coach)

The only difference is the talent. And Although I am no fan of Mr. Owens celebrations and his flamboyance………..he is confident not arrogant. Just because I do not like a player…….nor his antics………does not mean I cannot respect his play.

If you could trade Keyshawn for Owens would you? I would in a heartbeat. He can flat out play. Does not drink. Does not do drugs. He is freaking vegetarian for crying out loud. Has that aw shucks demeanor in the locker room, but on the field the guy can play and then he acts up. I think we have had our share of showboaters………….Irvin, Gant, Butch Johnson………..it would be a lot different if TO was dancing on the star after scoring a touchdown in a Cowboys uniform. Which ain’t going to happen…………so til then we all have the George Teague HIT and the Roy Williams tackle to keep us happy.

I dont think the tackle should be banned. Its a smart tackle to make from behind and i dont think Roy wants to injury any1 w./ it. If the player is moving forward and you hit them from behind, they’ll gain a few extra yards moving forward. But if you pull them backwards they wont gain those extra yards.

3 Things:
1.)Why don’t they just change it to 2 hand touch? That way nobody gets hurt. The problem is, it would not be football anymore and no one would watch. (Has anyone ever watched a pro football game from the 60’s or 70’s? Compared to that, the players in today’s NFL are already overprotected!)

2.)Look, I am all for small rule changes (tweeks) as long as you leave the basic game alone. If you get into making types of tackling illegal, you are making FUNDAMENTAL changes to the game. Leave the main focus of the game alone.

3.)This is obviously the result of the Eagles coaches, players, and fickle, whiny fans just upset about not being able to close the deal (again) in the Super Bowl and trying to find a scape goat to blame for thier continued ineptitude. It’s also a continuing bias against the Dallas Cowboys by the rest of the NFL because they are so insanely jealous of the Cowboys’ fame, success, ratings, etc…

Ya’ll got some points but in the end he ain’t nothing that this draft ain’t got. Check it out. Mike Williams, same talent without the crap.

Kent,

The intention clearly isn’t to outlaw hitting. Hell, the NFL promotes it in their videos. From what I’ve read they want to stop any tackles with the intent to injure. It’s not getting as much press, but the “Warren Sapp” rule is also being debated. If you remember that, he blindsided a Packers lineman 40 yards away from the play. It was legal, but it dislocated the guy’s hip and almost ended his career. It was a cheap shot. And there is a huge difference between hard hits and cheap shots. When they start trying to outlaw hard hits, I’m with you, I’ll turn out.,

And I agree with you that tweaks should be the course, but lets face it, fundamental changes have been made. You can’t clothesline a guy any more. You can’t spear people. You can’t head slap. You can’t chop block.

Anybody really miss those types of hits?

You guys make some interesting points, but I think this rule needs more discussion from the Owners and Committee members.

Rafeal Vela’s comments on March 16th, noted that coming down on an offensive player’s legs can cause serious injury. True! BUT Roy never came down on Musa Smith’s nor T.O.‘s legs. The replay I’m watching clearly shows Roy pulling him down from behind with his weight, but Roy avoids contact with T.O.‘s legs. Of all of Roy’s tantalizing hits, this tackle is the safest by far. Remember when he hit Emmit in the Shoulder with his helmet and put Emmit out of the game. That hit was far worse than the Musa Smith or the T.O. tackle.

If you outlaw tackling someone from behind by grabbing the inside of the shoulderpad collar, there’s absolutely no other way to tackle from behind other than DIRECTLY LUNGING for the OPPONENTS’s leg, causing immediate contact between helmet and legs. Otherwise, whenever someone gets behind you, the defender will have no choice but to allow them to run into the endzone unless they’re fast enough to get in front of the offensive guy to get in a “CLEAN” hit. Too unrealistic.

By outlawing this type of tackle, no defender will be allowed to grab anyone from behind. Their only options will be to either allow the offender to run in peace (since he’s already behind you) or lunge for the legs, thus causing an injury to the offender (ankle sprang, torn achiles, etc.).

Think about what you’re doing committee members… Think about it.

Remember all the RULES the NFL has passed to Protect the QB. And now we have guys like Donovan McNabb, Culpepper, Rothlesiberger and of course the Barry Sanders like Michael Vick. If they are going to change rules, revisit the red shirts they hung on the QB and lets let these guys man up against real hits. The QB is now bigger than many LBs………all of ours in fact.

Football……….is a rough sport………which makes the likes of a career like Rice or Emmit or Montana all the more impressive. They already gave the Offense the edge last year with the rule change. Hech, Marino might be caught and passed by sup par QBs with the way the NFL wants the passing game to rule. Despite their wishes Rushing Yards were actually up as well. I think the new franchises and Free Agency has led to poor tackling and a lack of really good Defense. Their are a few exceptions, but I doubt we will ever see the dominating defenses of the 70s Steelers, the Cowboys of the 70s and 90s…….or Buddy Ryans boys in Chicago and later Philly.

Telling a guy he cannot tackle from behind………why dont we just give em the ball at our 20 yard line every time? Come on rules committee do not over do it.

Warren Sapp rule would be good, I saw that hit and it was a cheap shot by Sapp. The Packers Coach Sherman went after him after the game……….and told him what he thought. Just because something is Legal does not mean it is right………

Ra Nefer Ahnk Amon —

You say Williams never hit Musa Smith? Go to today’s Ft. Worth paper at:
www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/sports/football/nfl/dallas_cowboys/11208593.htm
You’ll see a photo of Williams at the instant he’s breaking Smith’s leg It isn’t
pretty. And they’re not outlawing tackling from behind. It’s piledriving the back of someone’s leg that they’re going to outlaw.

It’s too bad that Williams is getting the ink for this since he’s not the only one who has used this technique. But I’ll say it again. I’ve seen a Dallas player have his season ended by this. And I am certain to this day that Lavar Arrington could have taken Robert Thomas down without horsecollaring him and breaking his leg. You know we would all be screaming if somebody broke Julius Jones’ leg in the same way.

Jon —

I think we’ll still see dominating defenses. The Ravens D was very good and that was only four seasons ago. The problem is that we’ll never see one again for very long. Free agency will rip it to pieces.

The NFL, like every other wagon-jumping, entertainment driven sports, is about fans in the stands. Accordingly, until the league gets younger, more forward thinking owners running the show, it will continue to move towards points production per game (otherwise known as PPPG).

Let’s face it. Dilfer is good but boring. It’s about points on the board, not fundamental footbal. And for those of you who know the difference, football is supposed to be a 4th quarter game.

A 4th quareter game is defined and won with defense! But defense is boring and does not drive ratings which directly affects the direction of the game.

 JK

Yeah….NFL needs to outlaw the tackle. I have seen too many injuries from the result of the tackle. Priest Holmes, Mike Vick, Edgerrin James to name a few. Nobody is saying you cannot tackle from behind, but neck tying somebody and pulling down with your weight will is not the type of tackling that is teached on any level. Roy Williams injured four people last year alone. One guy in preseason, he actually dislocated two knees on the tackle. Some of these people on this board that defend the tackle act like there is no such thing as an illegal tackle. There are such things as illegal tackles folks, and this is celarly one of them.

Rafael,

Yes the Ravens D was very good. The Bucs played really good D. So is the Pats for that matter. Every Super Bowl team I can remember including all of the Dallas Cowboys teams had good defense. But very good………is not dominating. The Ravens beat an overachieving Giants Team in the Super Bowl. A dominating Defense is not likely to stay together very long. The Giants of 80s and early 90s……..Buddy Ryans Chicago Bears and his Eagles………the Cowboys of the Early and mid 90s………even San Francisco when they were Super Bowl Contenders had a much overlooked Defense. I remember that first SF game, not the Catch in the playoffs but the one where they sacked Danny White about a dozen times and beat us in SF like 45 to 9 or something………Bill Walsh the Offensive Mastermind had one hech of a defense.

I just think we are seeing more parity with the league getting larger, and the advent of Free Agency. Doubt we will see a Defense that dominates the Line Of Scrimmage the way some of those teams did for 5 years or more. The Ravens have also shown great Drafting on the Defensive side of the ball. Ed Reed for example. Obviously Ray Lewis is a dominating player, but their defense is no longer dominating.

Rafeal,
I stand corrected on the Musa Smith tackle, but the Jamal Lewis tackle wasn’t like that one.

I’ll say it again. It we outlaw “horse collaring”, “grabbing from behind the neck and pulling down” or whatever you call it, you will limit a defender’s ability to REACH out and attempt to tackle from behind. More than likely, he’ll be too afraid to reach out for fear of a penalty and thus use his only alternative, to LUNGE for the back of the legs, and that’s dangerous for both parties in my opinion.

I know you want to make the distinction between grabbing someone from behind to slow his momentum before grabbing around a waist or a thigh to bring him down versus grabbing from behind and pulling down with your weight. But HONESTLY, do you think these referees will make that distinction during the game? Do you absolutely believe they’ll confer in the middle of the field and decide, “yes the defender grabbed the offender from behind the neck, but he didn’t pull down with his weight,… therefore no foul on the play….” C’mon, be realistic. No one will be allowed to grab from behind in any manner close to the proximity of the neck.

You’ll have to settle for lunging for the legs, helmet first and hope no one gets injured in that process. Think about the NBA, and what happened in Detroit (the fighting). Now no NBA player is allowed to jaw at one another without the refs tossing them. No distinctions are made. And that’ll be the case here. No distinction will be made if you grab the collar and force them down easily or pull them down with your weight. All will be considered a COSTLY penalty.

I agree with J. Kirk. It’s all about making money and driving those ratings. If the Competition committee can decide how best to increase the scoring in the league, by making more rules for defenders to follow instead of offenders, then this league is only living up to its truest Acronym meaning ….. the “NO FUN LEAGUE” (NFL).

I don’t know if any of you played college ball or any level higher than high school, but if you did then you remember just how much faster every level becomes. I played for a bad DivI team until an injury ended my football career and even on a bad tem I was amazed at how much faster the players were.

I played in a nationally ranked high school team and went deep in the playoffs every year and saw talent and speed at that level, but nothing like college.

The point is this. As fast as the game becomes at each level, how is a 4.7 guy supposed to tackle a 4.5 guy when he is blowing by full speed? When you’re chasing someone from behind and the pads are the only target that can be attacked, then the pads will get attacked.

In football on the defensive side, it is about getting the ball carrier on the ground. As for the potential injuries, it is FOOTBALL! Anyone of you should chime in here and describe the game to an imaginary someone who has never seen the game. They will think that you are describing some kind of war. I’ll bet on it.

Injuries are one of the reasons that the Player’s association has worked so hard to get the bigh money to the big players. Injuries suck, but they will never be eliminated from the game.

I’ll bet most of you would prefer the full flavor NFL to the watered down version. Am I right?

Jack Anderson,

I did play ball above high school, and have a nice ACL surgery scar on my right knee from it. I know the injuries football causes. Watered down to full flavor? Some of the in the grasp rules are cheezy, but I don’t miss head slaps or chop blocks or clotheslines. I don’t watch football to see spinal injuries.

Lets remember one thing here — we’re Cowboys fans. And the Cowboys, when they are good, endure more cheap shots than other teams, because they’re popular. When Dallas won that ’93 game against New York, known as the Emmitt-plays-with-one-arm game, their d-linemen were getting chop blocked like crazy. I read them afterwards saying they knew they had to suck it up and deal with it because they knew the refs could let it go. They were the Cowboys and however legit the complaints, it would look like whining. So they simply accepted it.

Ra Nefer Anhk Amon,

The competition committee is having a very hard time writing the language for this because they are know that if they are too broad, they will end up outlawing good tackles. But everyone there is adamant that the type of tackle they are referring to are unnecessary. And they are. When guys like Marty Schottenheimer, who was a fair LB in his day and every coach and GM on the committee, not to mention the Cowboys organization, say they will vote for this once they get it accurately defined for the refs, you know the technique is a form of cheap shot. We can debate tackling in the abstract, but its clear that the folks who have the power are going to outlaw this.

Boo woo, poor old TO. How do you feel sorry for any player making millions of dollar playing a contact sport. Should we result to flag football and you can only pull the flag if the player stops and you must say, "please may I;. Give me a brake. The rule committee is attempting to save and justify there existance. What’s next?