New Issues:

Need to discuss 2 things.  The first is easy the second is hard.

Starting with the easy one, I want to remind people to be careful on the contact.  There have been a lot more "crackdown" plays called to help control the rush which is perfectly fine.  However, we need to remember that there are still limits to how much force should be applied.  Usually when a tight end cracks down, it's not that big a deal because the defensive end can see it coming and beause the tight end is starting the hit from a dead stop and hasn't gotten up a head of steam yet.  However, if the slot receiver is cracking and coming in motion before the snap, he could be moving pretty fast when he makes contact and could end up throwing one defender into another or even into the lineman.  The faster you're moving at moment of impact, the greater the force impacted on the person being hit.  It's possible to execute that crack without coming into the defender hard.

Now the harder issue.  In the last two games, there have been several plays where defenders (often me) called penalties and but the play resulted in either an incomplete pass or a turnover or even a safety.  Because the penalties were clearly called immediately, they were enforced meaning the down was played over because we have few spot or loss of down penalties (Flag Guards and Intentional Grounding being two).  A number of players have suggested that the defense needs to be able to turn the penalty down and let the result of the play stand.  This would assumedly also apply to offensive penalties.

Pros: Those who want to see affected team get to make the call point out that this is the way that it occurs in real football. Further, in the instance of an offensive penalty, it means that you get another down for committing a foul. It's been suggested that Offensive linemen could just hold on every play because the worst that could happen is that the down is played over. The same could be said about PI by the defense, if you're going to get beat on a big down, just wrap a guy up and play over.

Cons: This could lead to people calling lots of ticky-tack penalties so that if they don't like the result of the play, they get to do it over but if they do like the result they can decline it.  I know that when I call people for holding me, I do it either because it has happened a couple times already and I'm tired of it or because, I'm convinced it made a material difference in the play.  For example, if I'm held while 2 yards from the QB and he has already started his throw, the hold doesn't affect the play - I would not have gotten there if not held.  However, if I'm 2 yards away and the QB has not started throwing and I have a clean path, then I think that the hold probably made a difference.  The problem is that now we get into lots of arguments over whether the call was ticky-tack or whether I really had a chance to make that play.


Further Discussion:  First, I need to dispel a rumor.  Wile we don't normally have loss of down/spot fouls, we have enforced them for excessive/repeated plays (offensive and defensive) and particularly egregious plays (like rediculous PI simply because the defender was beat).  It doesn't happen much but it does happen.  Having said that, I don't know how to resolve this.

I fully understand the logic to allow the offended team to decline the penalty, however, here's how we go double ticky-tack.  The offensive lineman holds (not egregiously) because he figures there is no real penalty for it and just plays really agressive.  The held player calls "hold! hold! hold!" and the QB takes a step and throws down field where the ball is picked.  The receiver then claims "I stopped playing because of the hold call."  Now what?  We have actually told players to stop playing upon penalty to try to avoid arguments (i.e. if you thought the play was dead, why did you keep playing?) and for safety.  Think about offsides and false starts, everyone just stops and we redo the play (this is not the type of penalty we're all worried about but it illustrates the point because if an defensive lineman pulls up thinking the play is dead and the TE cracks down on him when he's not prepared, then we have a better chance for an injury).

So we need a way to resolve without increasing ticky-tack calls and/or arguments and the solution needs to address the issue where players stop playing as a result of the call?