I love when people have lost an argument that they have to resort to blatant ignorance to try and make a point. First and foremost, Heap was in a defenseless position being in the air. There was no reason for Meriweather to leave his feet at all. Also, contrary to your thinking, Meriweather could have hit Heap anywhere from the chest down without leaving his feet. You can sit there and make up all the garbage you want, but none of it will change the fact that Meriweather did not have to leave his feet to hit Heap. Period.
I haven't "lost" anything and I don't comment on things as a game to win or lose an argument. The fact of the matter is you are wrong, it is what it is though. You can go about life believing that Brandon wanted to hit his friend in the head, I'll go by the more logical assumption that he was aiming for the chest (which clearly he was when he began his half-assed stop-turn-jump). To wait for Heap to land is to give Heap a chance to better secure the ball and allow a completion.
Now you are making sh!t up. Sorry, but Meriweather did, in fact, launch himself and aim for the head. As for you watching it objectively? BS. You watched it and saw what you wanted in a lame attempt to support the ridiculous position you've taken.
Once again with your lame attitude DB. I didn't make anything up and as a matter of fact I went 3 days believing that Brandon went for the head. Then I watched it again, and it's blatantly obvious that is exactly NOT what he did at all.
I don't expect him to be perfect. However, I do expect him to follow the rules and not aim for the head when he goes to tackle someone. And I also don't expect him to launch himself at another player in a way that will, more often than not, cause him to be flagged for Unnecessary Roughness.
You can make a case that he shouldn't have "launched" you cannot make a case that he aimed for the head. Pause the replay (the one I linked at :03 I think) at the instant that Meriweather is pushing off his feet (the decision time) and there is a straight line from meriweather to Heap's chest. Of course Brandon didn't judge correctly Heap's decent so that he ended up hitting Heap in the head while Brandon was turning.
While the NFL is a business, all rules are not set out for their benefit. In fact, many of the recent rule modifications have come in an attempt to make the game safer. I guess you could call it "for their benefit" with the idea that they don't want to have to pay higher than usual insurance premiums because numerous players are suffering neck/spine injuries.
They will never look after player safety if it doesn't benefit them. Welcome to corporate America.
Plays like Brandon's will be suspension worthy if they continue to happen on a regular basis. You can't leave your feet and launch yourself at a player who is defenseless. Period. If/when you get that through your head, you'll understand the game better and the situation that is being talked about. Until then, you've taken yourself out of the conversation with your insistence on ignoring the rules and your claims that what Meriweather did was legal.
If a 5'11 safety has to wait for a 6'5 TE to land with the ball, then that TE has a huge advantage on those types of plays. And the alternative is going to be players cutting legs out. If they can't jump to hit in the chest, they will hit the waist or whatever else they can reach. Flipping a player in the air and having them land awkwardly is pretty f'ing dangerous.
I never claimed the legality of the hit I claim that it was not a flagrant head-hunting suspension worthy hit. If the launching rules say Brandon's hit was illegal, then fine. I don't know the wording of the launching rule, but I find it hard to believe they don't allow jumping at all. Are they going to suspend for ALL launching?
If all illegal hits are suspension worthy, then defenses will have to change because it is in their benefit to change. The risk of going for the hit becomes far too great and you simply will see altered play at the benefit of offense.
I'm all for player safety, what Brandon did was not flagrant nor suspension worthy.