Moore defended the call<\/a> and, in so doing, demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of the rule regarding contact with \u201cdefenseless players.\u201d<\/p>\nDefenseless players can be hit. They can be hit forcibly. Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels was hit forcibly on Sunday while \u201cdefenseless\u201d (i.e., after a change of possession). Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce was hit forcibly last night while \u201cdefenseless\u201d (i.e., while trying to catch a pass).<\/p>\n
On one hand, it\u2019s good that the NFL admitted the blunder. On the other hand, what choice did the NFL have? It was a bad call, made worse by Moore\u2019s botched post-game explanation of the rule. Moore caused confusion by creating the impression that long snappers are off limits and, more broadly, that defenseless players generally can\u2019t be hit hard.<\/p>\n
They can be. But they can\u2019t be hit forcibly in the head or neck area. They can\u2019t be hit forcibly with an opponent\u2019s helmet. And they can\u2019t be on the wrong side of an illegal launch.<\/p>\n
Hopefully, the league will do more than authorize Harbaugh to acknowledge that the mistake was made. How about a social-media video, blasted on the NFL\u2019s 35.6 million follower Twitter feed?<\/p>\n
At a minimum, Walt Anderson needs to address that play \u2014 and the other controversial calls from Steelers-Ravens \u2014 on Sunday\u2019s NFL GameDay Morning.<\/p>\n
People need to understand what the rules are, and what they aren\u2019t, when it comes to defenseless players. And there\u2019s no defense for the mess the NFL created on Sunday, even with Monday\u2019s limited effort to clean it up.<\/p>\n
And nothing can change the fact that the Ravens were on the wrong side of a four-point swing in a game that ended with a five-point margin of defeat. With the race for playoffs tighter than ever, that one mistake could be the difference between the Ravens qualifying for the postseason or going home after Week 18.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last night, we explained why the NFL had blown the unnecessary roughness penalty that was called against Ravens…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":434293,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[1232,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-434292","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-nfl","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115686506860566643","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}