Mitchell’s Late Hit/Roughing Call on A. Smith

If Fournette was waving in a “you’re nothing to me” kind of way and Mitchell blew him up, I’d totally understand the post-tackle celebration.

 

Rankings imo don't tell the whole tale sometimes. For example the Jags game did we play good pass defense or was our run defense so bad our pass D looked good and the jags didn't have to pass? At the end of the day I am not a Mitchell fan vs the run or the pass. His stupid hits and attitude has me counting the days until he is gone. jmo

 

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap30...mike-mitchell-late-hit-as-flagrant-as-it-gets

Somebody needs to send Smith a box of Kleenex.

It was not as flagrant as it gets. It was a full on football play with many bodies moving in different awkward directions including Alex himself. Fortunately, he didn't get hurt but it wasn't a dirty play. Ben has been hit 10x worse many times over.

Jeez and people call Ben a drama queen?

 

What are you talking about.

The Defense handled that Jags game for the most part before they gave up a 90 yarder at the end. Hell, Ben spotted them 14 of the 30 and put them in good position for the rest.

The Jags had really one good drive that netted points on this defense. So in summary one 90 yarder for 7 and 2 pick six's = 21 out of 30 points meaning the defense held them the rest of the game to 9 points!

 

Safety should definitely be an early-round priority in next year's draft.

 

Correct before the 90 yarder he had just under 100yds. When you look at it and the qb only threw 14 times and the Jags not having to be pushing cause we spotted them points we still could stop the run. Same thing in the vs the Ravens, Collins almost had 9 yds a carry. Howard had 140 yrds in the Bear game. Yes I get we are ranked good but if you think our run D is good enough than that's fine....I don't!

 

Yes and we are ranked 24th vs the run, that should tell ya something no? We are 7th in total yds, 2nd vs the pass and 6th in points. Blast don't get me wrong you should know by now I am not trying to bring this down. Our D have improved greatly this year but Mitchell is and will be a problem. We are 24th vs the run while still ranked #1 overall. And before ya say it I am not blaming it all just on Mitchell, I know Dupree and Davis are problems too.

 

I totally agree Elvis, yes our offense hasn't help and yes Sunday we did show we can stop the run. I hope we see more of that cause 1 out of 6 games isn't good to stop the run in.....

 

I would tend to agree with this. I would add as well the offense is not helping the defense AT ALL.. Put more points on the board and it matters not if an RB breaks for 60 yards. If the defense holds their gaps and do not make bad predicitions and over persue we will be fine..

 

QB might very well be 2st round. Tough part is safety at best will be a second round. By then, the top ones are long gone. So, do you take the 8th best safety or 2nd best something that is still on the board?

 

I got the sense on that play that it was less a celebration, and more kicking off with Fournette about something that seemed to have been said/done.

It still wasn't great to see, but it looked more like there was some point-making about something or other, not a celebration of giving up a first down.

 

I think we all know the answer to that one, from Colbert's perspective at least.

Hopefully it's not the 2nd best Long Snapper...

 

I appreciate the homer view of this hit. But if that's Ben we'd all be pissed off. If it was a Bengal doing it to Ben we'd be going crazy. That push by Chickillo is barely a push. That is NOT the kind of push that would send you diving head first and slightly to the right (when the push was on the right shoulder). If I had to guess, Mitchell thought that was a Chief pushing him from behind so he exaggerated the push and gave us his best acting job. Maybey he thought since he was getting hit from behind that was an opportunity to hit the QB? What ever it was, it was definitely worthy of a flag. That was IMO a moronic thing to do. I don't think Mitchell is the kind of player that would intentionally try and end a QB's season with a late hit. I think Mitchell is just a moron.

All that said, Smith is acting like Tom Brady. Grow a pair you pansy. This is tackle football. Things happen. Ben's takes hits like that almost every week and rarely gets the flag.

 

Dude your logic has some serious issues. Those big runs are still runs. They are still part of the average. If you take away the long ones, then take away the stops for losses. If we take away every long pass completion from any QB his stats would also look pretty mediocre. Good defenses don't give up huge run plays. There's a reason we give up those big plays and it's not because we are actually better at stopping the run then the stats say. We knew those teams were going to run the ball.... we knew the run was coming and still couldn't stop it. That's the definition of a bad run defense. Not sure who the weak link is, but if I had to guess, I'd say our safeties and LB's are not very good at stopping the run. If I had a $ for every time I saw Shazier or Dupree run him self out of tackle I'd be a rich man. Same goes for our Safeties. They over commit before they know were the RB is going or where the gap is. That's what happens when you keep getting beat like a drum... you over react to try and stop it, which just sets you up for more failure. We gave up strength for speed when took Shazier and Dupree. I also think good O-lineman are able to take advantage of Hargrave's aggressiveness. As we all know, sometimes is better to just clog the LOS vs trying to push up field and pressure the QB. Casey Hampton and Aaron Smith were masters at this.

 

I don’t think that’s the standard the NFL home office should apply.

My job requires me to stand in the middle and put personal biases aside. If it had been Burfict and Ben? I’d have been really pissed and really, REALLY wanted it to be intentional. But I couldn’t ignore the feet tangling up or the push.

Chick tripped Mitchell; the push was a lesser contributor.

Tomlin agreed.

 

I judge our defense on what I've seen and what the stats tell us. We show some promise. I think we could fix the run D issues, but until we do it's fair to say we are not a good run defense. The chiefs game was by far the best performance of the year. Hopefully that game was a step forward and not a fluke. The previous 3 games were embarrassing for our run defense. So it's not just 1 or 2 plays inflating our d stats. The Bears, Jags, and Ravens all had success running on us. We are 6th worst in yards per carry allowed, 4th worst allowing runs over 20 yards. That's after we shut down the Chiefs. So using your logic our run defense is actually worse then what the stats say. Point is cherry picking stats is flawed logic. Try to justify it all you want, facts are facts. I'd also point to the fact that we've played some of the worst offenses in the league. So sugar coating the numbers is not being honest.

The coaches should be able to make some adjustments to improve our run defense. Problem is that probably makes us more susceptible to the pass. The good news is we are IMO much improved at the pass rush and I think our corners are better than last season. If our LB's and Safeties can start playing better fundamental football we obviously could be significantly better. This defense IMo has the potential to be a top 5 defense when the season is over. We just need to see more of what we saw last week and less of what we saw the previous 3 weeks.

The other obvious concern is scoring in the redzone. Offensively we turned around our running game. I'm less confident in the play calling and execution in the redzone. This issue will keep opponents in the game and put more pressure on our defense. A bad run defense along with an offense that can't score points is a recipe for disaster. We have tendencies on both sides of the ball that will probably show up come playoff time... if I'm correct in thinking those tendencies are a result of poor coaching I don't see good things happening come playoff time. Right now we've got a division doing everything they can to help us make the playoffs. Winning the division shouldn't be a problem. Winning playoff games will be a problem once again because we are a sloppy/inconsistent team that can be easily out coached. We are too damn slow to adjust.

 

dude, if the trip was the issue, did it really need to result in Mitchel diving head first and to the right so that he was hitting the QB directly below the knees? If it was just a trip you wouldn't expect him to change momentum and direction right to the QB...You'd expect an attempt to stay up or more of a flop...not a dive.....but anything is possible I guess. I recall Burfict doing something similar to Ben...he acted like he was tripped into Ben's kneeds and propelled him self at Ben's legs after tripping. (difference is Burfict has intent to injure.) Like I said before, IMO it looks like Mitchell thought he was hit by a chief player and was doing a little acting and thought it gave him a free shot to take Smith to the ground. I also acknowledged the fact that Mitchell is not that kind of player so I seriously doubt there was intent to injure. Maybe just some stupidity. He got what he deserved. As for fines, I think unless there's a clear intent to injure then fines are BS. These fines for touching a QB's helmet or unintentional helmet to helmet contact is total BS. Most of the time the ball carrier is the cause for these kinds of things because the defender doesn't have the time to react to their movement.

 

I agree, Ben is always getting hit that would draw flags or suspensions for brady or rodgers. Its Bens style and the fact he so big the refs look the other way. Same with Cam Newton. He gets it worse then Ben to me though. But it doesnt change the fact that it was dirty to me.
Mitchell needs to be careful now.. He is now on the radar and if he has another hit like this i think he will be gone for a game.