What can be done about the illegal contact?

Lots illegal contact/use of hands this week. Despite an exceptional showing by the D, these calls really hurt us a handful of times and it seemed a lot of them were on Troy. Is this just an old instinct that is coming home to roost with the new focus against defender contact? *Should* anything be done to school our guys off it or is it just part of being more aggressive (i.e. I just have to live with it)

 

Fire the commy Goodel he's an arena football league commissioner period. He only cares about exploiting every dollar for the current year not the future. I am fiscally conservative so I am all for capitalism but Goodel's and idiot. He doesn't care about the league just about how much money he can squeeze out of the league.

 

Just got through watching it. The major one on Troy was when he hip checked a receiver across the middle. Totally unessesary and cost a great stop.

 

Is that the one that happened at about 6 yards past the LOS - even though Sims said it was 8?

Most all the other calls were extremely ticky-tack. It is ashame that a little hand checking is allowed at every level of football except the top tier.

Also I still don't get adding 5 yards to the end of a run for those ticky-tack calls away from the play (happened when luck ran to his left - they called one of those BS calls and added it to the end of the run, giving a first down).

 

unfortunately, nothing will be done this season..... during the offseason, the competition committee is going to have to sit down and seriously discuss things

 

Illegal hands to the face was the big one yesterday. Quit hitting them in the facemask off the line. I was about ready to swear yesterday, it was terrible. Was more mad at the refs for calling it, it happens almost every game in the NFL.

 

This!!

 

It's an issue league-wide, as they showed a graphic illustrating the impact of the league's offseason emphasis on certain penalties, mostly against the defense. Looked like most of the penalties, illegal contact being one of them, doubled from this point in the season last year to this year.

Looks like the league got what it wanted, as two teams scored 51 this week and at least two others were above 40. All we can do about it is generate pressure up front, otherwise the DB position is being neutered by officiating.

 

It also depends on the crew. Hochuli and crew seem to call more penalties than anyone else.

 

Also there were probably 4 or 5 qbs with over 400yds. That is also something the league wants. How in the world is it "roughing the passer" when you literally just TOUCH a qbs helmet? That has been a problem for a while. I seriously wish Goodell would just come out and say "look I hate defense and it doesn't sell tickets". I could respect that because it would at least be honest. But when he flat out just patronizes the fans it just drives us all to despise him even more. At least the hardcore fans anyway. The average person that just tunes in for the Super Bowl is really who the league is trying to appeal to. They know the casual fan wants to see offense and that's why they cater so strongly to them, in my opinion.

 

And Fantasy Football, BFT...

What can the Steelers do about it?

Not much...
Try to play by the rules, and HOPE they enforce the offensive push-offs, equally, with the defensive fouls...

Not likely...

So, keep letting Ben throw it up for 500 yards a game, and we should get our fair share of the defensive penalties...

I hate that strategy, but it makes sense...


Even tho, I would prefer to see us pound the ball with Bell and Blount...

When in Rome...

Put up 50 points thru the air, mostly...

GO STEELERS!!!

 

I agree with you completely when it comes to the fantasy thing Bleed. I feel like it has an effect on reality in that the league caters to those people as well. Does the NFL actually profit from fantasy football though? I mean it seems to me that you can play fantasy and not spend a dime on the "real" stuff ya know? I mean I know people that are really in to fantasy but hardly watch a snap all year.

 

You guys hit the nail on the head. The dollar, offense and fantasy football are what it boils down to. You wont see this change until the fans get tired of it and, I'm afraid, the casual fan has a lot more strength than the hard-core fan. I don't like Goodell any more than most of you but the guy is smart and knows who to sell the game to. Very sad for us "traditionalists"!

 

Yeah hardcore fans pretty much always get left in the cold. I've given up on "comic book" movies because they pretty much change tons of mythos to sell it to a more casual audience. If that's what they want to do that's fine but I will just stick to the comics because that's where the true story and fun is at anyway. What's weird though is if a casual fan DOES decide to go pick up a comic after watching the movie they must feel like they've entered the twilight zone. I don't understand why companies don't want the experience to be consistent for everyone. The same principle applies to video games as well. Now I can abstain from watching certain movies or buying certain games as a sort of "statement" ya know? But to stop watching football?! It would be REALLY hard for me to do that because there's really no alternative to the NFL. I mean could ANY of us just STOP watching pro football? Goodell can do it because he has us over a barrel pretty much.

 

Hey guys, what about if we lined up all of our DBs ten yards off from the receiver? Then they'll be nowhere near them, so by extension won't be able to do any illegal contact.

I can't believe nobody's thought of this before!

 

The "new" rules (really more like aggressive enforcement of the old ones) are well documented/

The intended focus of my question was: is it even reasonable to try to coach this out of players? The game moves fast and stuff just happens. If we take, as a given, that our D should be hitting guys more (not less) off the line (which IIRC is where most of the illegal hands were happening sunday)... is it asking too much of the players to focus on not doing this? This is not a rhetorical/sarcastic question. If it's just the "cost of doing business" so be it.

 

This is why corporations will always win, in our society. If you want to make a statement, then you need to be willing to sacrifice anything.

 

Cost of buisness in the scheme this team runs. You are essentially giving up contact with the receiver when you play that far off.

You have the ability to hit inside the 5 yards and disrupt those quick timing patterns that tend to burn you, but you give that up and play to prevent the big play and give it up anyway!

Yiu coach after 5 not grabing, but with the game these days you do it and hope they miss the call.

 

I'm not sure what the Steelers should do. Just keep playing football.

There's not much else that can be done. A lot of these flags are dropping on incidental contact. Many times they don't affect the outcome of the play. But when our defensive front 7 are blitzing and the opposing O-Line is bear hugging the refs turn their heads away and start whistling. Pathetic.

 

Walt Anderson's crew calls more hand to the face penalties than any other crew in the league, and Goodell doesnt make the rules, the rule committee does: And because the seahawks used a lot of hands on receivers whiney Peyton and their headcoach complained to the league about it in writing so the rules committee decided to make it an emphisis this year, but it has turned into a joke....Still, 10 penalties is way to many penalties to have in a game, but, the steelers does it week in and week out and all tomlin says is that it's unacceptable, and the next week they just do it again......

 

Its very simple they call way to many and they also call to many PI'S ....Need to go to HS rules only 15 yards on PI and only 5 yards no auto 1st. down ...3rd. and 20 and a WR gets 1 finger laid on him and boom 1st. down....That's not good for the game no matter how you spin it...

 

The simple answer is not to hit the reciever after five yards. Realistically, though, it's going to happen. I know in the Colts game alone I saw three or four instances where Troy chipped a guy running across the field, after the five yards, and got away with it. I assume that's just how he plays. I'm not sure any amount of coaching can take that out of the player.
I kind of wondered what would happen if you were just to flat out manhandle a receiver within the five yards? Like lay him on his back. Would they call a penalty? They shouldn't, but that doesn't mean they won't.

And as was mentioned, each crew does it differently. I was watching the Seahawks-Panthers game and near the end of the game Newton was pretty clearly smacked in the helmet when he went back to pass and there was no call. It's all in a matter of what the crew keys on and what they see. I'm sure if they wanted to they could call a penalty on every single snap of the football game. There's always someone out there trying to get an edge.