Patriotic Fervor said:
With all due respect, Box, I clearly remember that replay on Harrison. He's standing perpendicular to the line, having slowed down because it appeared the play was over, when all of a sudden, from the left-hand side of your screen, here comes some big boob rolling on the ground who seemingly had no intention of stopping until something was hit to stop him.
The resultant injury may have been unintentional, per se, but you can't say it was inadvertant.
This, apparently, is how Pittsburgh has coached it's team through the years.
Now, I am not saying they are a team of dirty players, but I will say this is one reason teams don't like to play Pittsburgh. This is compounded by the House of Torture that is Heinz Field, what with it's cement-like "turf", etc. But that's another story for another day.
Fervor,
Thank you for the respect, my perspective on the Rodney play is different from yours because I am watching it on Tivo as I type this - I am forced to rely on memory often, but this game is still on the DVR.
At regular speed and slow motion the Steeler WR flies into the frame apparently aiming to hit Willie below the knees from behind - Rodney is moving laterally to line up over any crease the runner may find and collides with the cheapshot swine's leg. Rodney wasn't his target, Willie was.
Watching again, I remain convinced this was an illegal block, but there were no follow-up stories indicating a league fine that I can recall so I don't know for certain. The swine does start to roll on his side as he goes down by Willie's leg, but I see that as a protective curl to avoid hurting his own sorry *****.
Pittsburgh is a very physical football team, so are the Patriots. I am biased in my views on the Pats, so I try to be cautious about branding another team or player in anyway. I have seen Rodney take hits out of bounds when he should have known better. I presume he's taking the opportunity to advertise and is willing to take the penalty/fine it may incur. I consider him a nasty player, his peers consider him dirty - so be it.
We can disagree about Kimo's motives, tactics, athleticism - it's no skin of my nose - we all have one or two eyes and numerous replays on ESPN and Co. to look at. I am not telling you or Db, nor anyone else what you should believe, I am telling you what I believe and why, just to voice an opinion and make it a discussion instead of a lynch mob rant. Hopefully, a partisan but reasoned exchange of views will motivate one or more of our lurking reporters to press the league for explanations. We don't have to sit on the Competition Committee to Criminalize Patriot Tactics to have some influence on what actions the league should be considering.
Now, if Denver's swine RG attempts another chop block on Ty this weekend, I hope he gets a knee to the side of the helmet and contemplates his crime counting stars on the sidelines. I've got that on tape around here somewhere too. I'm going to have to breakdown and by a DVD recorder to reduce storage volume on the shelves - sigh.
