Players and their ridiculous excuses for illegal hits

[IllegalContact]

As upset as I am about the loss of Gronk for the year, I would love to call it a dirty illegal hit, to help ease my pain. However at the time and after watching numerous replays I think it was a legal hit and probably done with no intent to injure.

I read somewhere and I can't provide a link, that there have been 40
ACL injuries this year through week 14, as opposed to 32 all of last year. Are the rules having an effect on those? I am assuming that the rules are making defenders going lower with their tackles.

when Meriweather brought it up, people just dismissed him........fact is, the defenders are being pigeonholed into this.... eventually, the secondary will only need cornerbacks and safeties will be like fullbacks

 

[Patsrock]

No problem, i just hope that he gets the same as he gives, and the same goes for Ward. If someone ends their careers with a shot to the knees they will just be "avoiding the fine."

Logan Ryan went after Josh Gordons knee too in the same game. Do you want him to get hurt too?

 

[Huckleberry1]

So you feel Ward egregiously and purposefully tried to injure a player and it mortifies you, but you want someone to do it to him?

Yep, I think scumbag players who deliberately try to end other player's careers need to get the same treatment, I don't think they should be able to just go out there week after week injuring opposing players on purpose. I would much rather see Branden Meriweather get taken out for good than see him get away with deliberately trying to injure other player's every week.

You apparently feel they should just be allowed to get away with it, i disagree.

 

[Ring 6]

Yep, I think scumbag players who deliberately try to end other player's careers need to get the same treatment, I don't think they should be able to just go out there week after week injuring opposing players on purpose. I would much rather see Branden Meriweather get taken out for good than see him get away with deliberately trying to injure other player's every week.

You apparently feel they should just be allowed to get away with it, i disagree.

First, it is your unsubstantiated OPNION that they are purposely trying to injure players.
Second, my comments were directed at the moral high ground you were standing on so teeteringly.
Murderers are bad, therefore you should murder murderers, which therefore makes you a muderer that someone else should murder.....................................

 

[IllegalContact]

Yep, I think scumbag players who deliberately try to end other player's careers need to get the same treatment, I don't think they should be able to just go out there week after week injuring opposing players on purpose. I would much rather see Branden Meriweather get taken out for good than see him get away with deliberately trying to injure other player's every week.

You apparently feel they should just be allowed to get away with it, i disagree.

on purpose????

 

[Huckleberry1]

Logan Ryan went after Josh Gordons knee too in the same game. Do you want him to get hurt too?

I still haven't seen that play, and others here claimed it was McCourty, however if a Patriot player is deliberately trying to injure other players then I won't care if they get what they deserve. If the league isn't going to address it then the players have no choice but to protect themselves and put them out of action. I don't believe any of the deliberate attempts to injure should be allowed but if they are going to sanction it then I see no choice. Romanowski did it for years and got away with it, the league would have been much better off if someone had simply ended his career.


And for the record, I would love to see them take away the incidental fouls on the head shots and limit it to the egregious fouls, and the same goes for the knee shots. My issue is with filthy play and deliberately trying to take another player out by injuring them, and that is exactly what Ward did imo, and the excuse that there is no other way to stop Gronk literally means that any great skill player might as well hang them up because if you are Calvin Johnson there is no other way to stop you than by blowing out your knee.

 

[Kontradiction]

That's only because Belichick lacks critical thinking skills and doesn't understand the basics of tackling. If he knew more about football he wouldn't have been so angry.

Belichick also didn't have the benefit of watching the GIF over and over and over again at that point, either. Hell, even on this forum, we have posters that have had that luxury somehow still saying that Ward launched himself at Gronk hitting him in the knee with his helmet which, unless you've had your eyeballs gouged out of your skull, makes zero sense.

 

[Ring 6]

I still haven't seen that play, and others here claimed it was McCourty, however if a Patriot player is deliberately trying to injure other players then I won't care if they get what they deserve. If the league isn't going to address it then the players have no choice but to protect themselves and put them out of action. I don't believe any of the deliberate attempts to injure should be allowed but if they are going to sanction it then I see no choice. Romanowski did it for years and got away with it, the league would have been much better off if someone had simply ended his career.


And for the record, I would love to see them take away the incidental fouls on the head shots and limit it to the egregious fouls, and the same goes for the knee shots. My issue is with filthy play and deliberately trying to take another player out by injuring them, and that is exactly what Ward did imo, and the excuse that there is no other way to stop Gronk literally means that any great skill player might as well hang them up because if you are Calvin Johnson there is no other way to stop you than by blowing out your knee.

What is the conclusion that he intended to injure the player based upon?
What would you expect him to do in that case? His job is to make the tackle, and hitting a large man low is the best way to tackle him. Where exactly do you feel the hit should have been made.

Secondly, could you respond to this statement: A defense player should hit a ball carrier as hard as he can when making a tackle. Agree, disagree,comment?

 

[Palm Beach Pats Fan]

No shoulders, chest, ribs, stomach, waist, hips, thighs, or ankles to tackle, only the head and knees:

 

[Deus Irae]

Logan Ryan went after Josh Gordons knee too in the same game. Do you want him to get hurt too?

Don't forget Devin McCourty, who freely admitted going at an opponent's knee. Both Ryan and McCourty should, apparently, be banned from football, for life.


We have to be consistent, after all.

 

[Huckleberry1]

First, it is your unsubstantiated OPNION that they are purposely trying to injure players.
Second, my comments were directed at the moral high ground you were standing on so teeteringly.
Murderers are bad, therefore you should murder murderers, which therefore makes you a muderer that someone else should murder.....................................

Extrapolate and deconstruct all you want, i know you will anyways, but the truth is that i am not claiming a moral high ground on this at all. I hate dirty play, and it doesn't matter what sport it is. I think John Scott and Matt Cooke should have been banned for life for their hits on Savard and Erickkson, and I think Romanowski should have been banned from the NFL for the same reason, and as much as i loved him as a Patriot i am sure that many could make the same argument for Rodney Harrison. Unfortunately too often the leagues allow these guys to get away with this kind of crap, and that leads to great p;layers having their careers ended prematurely because scumbags who can't play have no way to stop them. Imo teams have been going after Gronkowski's knees season after season, and that this happened isn't the least bit unexpected because teams know they can get away with it. There isn't anything morally correct about wanting to see any player get hurt, and I am well aware of that, but if a player is going to deliberately try to injure other player's and is getting away with it then morality pretty much goes out the window and pragmatism into it. If the only way to stop Branden Meriweather from trying to injure other player's is to injure him then that's the way it goes. And while sean Thornton went over the top with his attack on orpik the other night i can certainly understand where he was coming from after the hit by Orpik on Erickkson and the knee to Marchand's head by Neal. It sucks, and people end up hurt, but you cannot simply allow opposing players to target and injure your player's without responding.


Tell me AJ, if you played for the Bruins would you have simply stood by and allowed the Penguins to deliberately and continually injure your teammates or would you have responded to it? If your answer is that you would have responded then your position is absolutely no different than mine, especially "morally."

 

[Huckleberry1]

First, it is your unsubstantiated OPNION that they are purposely trying to injure players.

As it is your OPINION that he wasn't trying to injure him. I know what I saw and I believe it was a deliberate attempt to blow out Gronkowski's knee. You can feel free to see it any way you like but that is my OPINION.

 

[Ring 6]

Extrapolate and deconstruct all you want, i know you will anyways, but the truth is that i am not claiming a moral high ground on this at all. I hate dirty play, and it doesn't matter what sport it is. I think John Scott and Matt Cooke should have been banned for life for their hits on Savard and Erickkson, and I think Romanowski should have been banned from the NFL for the same reason, and as much as i loved him as a Patriot i am sure that many could make the same argument for Rodney Harrison. Unfortunately too often the leagues allow these guys to get away with this kind of crap, and that leads to great p;layers having their careers ended prematurely because scumbags who can't play have no way to stop them. Imo teams have been going after Gronkowski's knees season after season, and that this happened isn't the least bit unexpected because teams know they can get away with it. There isn't anything morally correct about wanting to see any player get hurt, and I am well aware of that, but if a player is going to deliberately try to injure other player's and is getting away with it then morality pretty much goes out the window and pragmatism into it. If the only way to stop Branden Meriweather from trying to injure other player's is to injure him then that's the way it goes. And while sean Thornton went over the top with his attack on orpik the other night i can certainly understand where he was coming from after the hit by Orpik on Erickkson and the knee to Marchand's head by Neal. It sucks, and people end up hurt, but you cannot simply allow opposing players to target and injure your player's without responding.


Tell me AJ, if you played for the Bruins would you have simply stood by and allowed the Penguins to deliberately and continually injure your teammates or would you have responded to it? If your answer is that you would have responded then your position is absolutely no different than mine, especially "morally."

I do not know what you are talking about, I do not follow hockey.

You also avoided my 2 questions.
1) How do you determine intent to injure?
2) Do you agree a defender should hit a ball carrier as hard as he is capable of?

 

[Ring 6]

As it is your OPINION that he wasn't trying to injure him. I know what I saw and I believe it was a deliberate attempt to blow out Gronkowski's knee. You can feel free to see it any way you like but that is my OPINION.

Wrong. It is my opinion that I do not know what Wards intent was.

I will say that I have no knowledge of him ever injuring a player before, so I find it hard to believe that after all the games he has played in he decided that on one particular play he was going to turn into a guy who tries to injure players.
He made the type of tackle that gets made dozens of times every weekend. Are they all trying to injure?

 

[Huckleberry1]

First, it is your unsubstantiated OPNION that they are purposely trying to injure players.
......

Meriweather went on record that he is going to go after knees and he was clearly saying that knee injuries are going to be the result. If that is "unsubstantiated" then there is no such thing as "substantiation." He's a piece of garbage and should be banned for life.

 

[Patsrock]

Extrapolate and deconstruct all you want, i know you will anyways, but the truth is that i am not claiming a moral high ground on this at all. I hate dirty play, and it doesn't matter what sport it is. I think John Scott and Matt Cooke should have been banned for life for their hits on Savard and Erickkson, and I think Romanowski should have been banned from the NFL for the same reason, and as much as i loved him as a Patriot i am sure that many could make the same argument for Rodney Harrison. Unfortunately too often the leagues allow these guys to get away with this kind of crap, and that leads to great p;layers having their careers ended prematurely because scumbags who can't play have no way to stop them. Imo teams have been going after Gronkowski's knees season after season, and that this happened isn't the least bit unexpected because teams know they can get away with it. There isn't anything morally correct about wanting to see any player get hurt, and I am well aware of that, but if a player is going to deliberately try to injure other player's and is getting away with it then morality pretty much goes out the window and pragmatism into it. If the only way to stop Branden Meriweather from trying to injure other player's is to injure him then that's the way it goes. And while sean Thornton went over the top with his attack on orpik the other night i can certainly understand where he was coming from after the hit by Orpik on Erickkson and the knee to Marchand's head by Neal. It sucks, and people end up hurt, but you cannot simply allow opposing players to target and injure your player's without responding.


Tell me AJ, if you played for the Bruins would you have simply stood by and allowed the Penguins to deliberately and continually injure your teammates or would you have responded to it? If your answer is that you would have responded then your position is absolutely no different than mine, especially "morally."

Matt Cooke and John Scott were I can 100% intentional intent to injure. I can't say that about Wards tackle on Gronk

Orpik's hit was actually a clean hit. Hockey is the one sport I have played my entire life and that is a hit people take all the time. Didn't target the head, shoulder to body hit , puck was within his area. Just bad luck with Loui getting hurt. Thornton way over reacted to the hit because of the previous few games and frustration setting in. No one but the bench saw the Neal hit on Marchand. When he was being hit Thornton was looking up ice at Orpik.

 

[Ring 6]

Meriweather went on record that he is going to go after knees and he was clearly saying that knee injuries are going to be the result. If that is "unsubstantiated" then there is no such thing as "substantiation." He's a piece of garbage and should be banned for life.

No Meriwhether was responding to what he felt were bad calls and excessive punsihment on high hits, and responded that if you are going to fine and even suspend him for what he felt was questionably going high, then he will have to go low, and the results may be worse.
Only in your mind is there any attempt to injure.

Not to mention that we were talking about your unsubstantiated opinion that WARD WAS TRYING TO PURPOSELY INJURE GRONK.

 

[Huckleberry1]

I do not know what you are talking about, I do not follow hockey.

You also avoided my 2 questions.
1) How do you determine intent to injure?
2) Do you agree a defender should hit a ball carrier as hard as he is capable of?

Google hits by Neal on Marchand and Orpik on Erickkson and you will see exactly what i am talking about. Thornton's response was over the top but a response was definitely warranted. Look at the clips and tell me what you think should have been done by the Bruins.

1-By watching the plays. I can't count the times I have seen plays that were deliberate attempts to injure in pro sports, and i didn't need to know what they were thinking to know that they were going out of their way to injure. The hit on Harrison's knee by the Titan, the head shot to Todd Heap by Meriweather, the two head shots by Meriweather this season, and imo the shot on Gronkowski by Ward this Sunday . You can see them however you wish but i go by what i see.


2) I think defenders should hit as hard and as clean as they can, i do not think they should dive at knees or go after the head. If incidental contact occurs that is the way it goes, but if they target and launch at the knees or head then it is a dirty play. Had Ward been trying to tackle Gronkowski it would be one thing, he wasn't, he was trying to take his knees out and made absolutely no attempt to wrap him up. I didn't like Brady getting injured by Pollard and I believe Pollard is a filthy player, but that hit was borderline and i never called for a fine or suspension for Pollard because imo it was too close to call on whether or not he tried to hurt him, and i am well aware that such plays happen all the time, however there is a line that gets crossed in all sports, and you don't ned a lie detector to determine whether or not they crossed it, you just have to look at the play. Different people see things see things differently and from what i can tell Patriot fans are pretty evenly divided on this play, I come down on the side of it being a really dirty hit, and i think it was very deliberate, I think the Browns D backs decided before the game even started to go after Gronk's knees, and i think they are far from alone in using that tactic. Team'[s have been diving at his knees week after week for a long time, and as a result he si going to spend another year plus in rehab, and i am sick of it. A part of me thinks he should just say screw it and retire, because the same thing is going to happen when he comes back.

 

[Huckleberry1]

No Meriwhether was responding to what he felt were bad calls and excessive punsihment on high hits, and responded that if you are going to fine and even suspend him for what he felt was questionably going high, then he will have to go low, and the results may be worse.
Only in your mind is there any attempt to injure.

Not to mention that we were talking about your unsubstantiated opinion that WARD WAS TRYING TO PURPOSELY INJURE GRONK.

My apologies, i forgot that your opinions are objective and everyone else subjective. Since you have no interest in responding to the questions i put to you the "discussion" is over.

Ward launched himself into Gronkowski's knee, that is as f.cking "substantiated" as it gets. By your "standard" there is no such thing as a dirty hit unless the player acknowledges, and in Meriweather's case even that isn't enough.

 

[Deus Irae]

Matt Cooke and John Scott were I can 100% intentional intent to injure. I can't say that about Wards tackle on Gronk

Orpik's hit was actually a clean hit. Hockey is the one sport I have played my entire life and that is a hit people take all the time. Didn't target the head, shoulder to body hit , puck was within his area. Just bad luck with Loui getting hurt. Thornton way over reacted to the hit because of the previous few games and frustration setting in. No one but the bench saw the Neal hit on Marchand. When he was being hit Thornton was looking up ice at Orpik.

Hockey's an interesting case study. The more the league takes policing conduct out of the hands of the players (heavier penalties for fighting, retaliation penalties and the like), the more dangerous the game gets for the players. You'd hope that they'd see that and head back towards self-policing but, instead, they take even more self-policing out of the game and make it even more dangerous.