“KNEEL BEFORE ZOD…BECAUSE ZOD WANTS THAT BALL.”
Hey, guess what players, coaches, and fans are riled up about now? A truly disgraceful act that I loathe to even put into writing. Here it goes: some football players got knocked down on a football play. It’s heinous, I know. That’s literally what happened on the final play of the Giants/Bucs game Sunday, when New York attempted to take a knee and Tampa tried to jump the ball and disrupt the snap. It got Tom Coughlin shouting in another coach’s face, and the situation has brought out such verbiage as “disgraceful,” “cheap,” “dangerous,” etc etc. from various sources.
“You don’t do that in this league…thank goodness we didn’t get anybody hurt,” said Coughlin, his red cheeks probably flaring bright. Coughlin’s anger that the defense would dare to make an effort against his team just proves that the kneel-down is a farce. A cop-out of a play. When time is still on the clock, nowhere in the NFL rulebook does it say that the game turns to two-hand touch just because the team with the lead wants it to. I’d understand the outburst if New York had been up by 20 in that situation, because contact between the two sides would have served no purpose. But the game was still within one score of being a tie. If Coughlin is worried about player safety, then he should do one of two things: either have his line be prepared to do some legit blocking in all situations, or bring in his backups to run the pseudo-snaps at the end.
The kneel-down has always bothered me. It’s the basketball equivalent of inbounding the ball with 15 seconds on the clock and yelling “OK NOBODY TOUCH ME UNTIL THE SHOT CLOCK RUNS OUT I DON’T WANT TO MESS THIS UP FOR MY TEAM” when you’re only up by a basket. Sorry, but your opposition is allowed to harrass you, foul you, slap the ball away, whatever is necessary once you have possession.
Screw etiquette. The league is full of egotistical, ‘roided-up, maniacally-competitive guys anyway. Drilling a defenseless player out of bounds is bad etiquette. Lining up and hitting the guy across from you once the ball is snapped is not. Maybe the NFL should look into it. I’d be willing to bet most coaches enjoy the kneel-down option, but the players not so much. Especially defensive ones.
Mike Golic of “Mike and Mike in the Morning” had a rare moment of clarity in response to the situation. Golic pointed out that the o-line will typically announce a kneel-down to the defense, yet, he says, “you know what don’t have to do if you’re a defensive team? You don’t have to acknowledge it. And if you don’t acknowledge it, you know what the offense had better do? Strap it up for the last play.”
Ah, from the mouths of Weight Watchers pushing babes….
Chris Dorsey
Nate Raby
Joseph Kyle Schmidt
Ben Van Iten
I don’t have any issue with what happened. The game is played till the clock rolls zeroes. You have every right to try and do what ever necessary to win the game. Que cliche Herm Edwards rap remix! However, you had 60 min to do that. A kneel down at the end of the game is not the time to decide to declare war and assert your bravado and bad assary. I do think that if someone had gotten hurt and missed some games or the rest of the seasons, some peoples opinions would be different on the subject. Back to the other hand, if you are going to kneel, send in your second and third stringers for that so when the Bucs act like the Bucs, you don’t pretend to not know it’s coming and risk your first stringers!
The reaction would also have been completely different if the Bucs had actually caused a fumble and recovered it, even if they didn’t manage to score afterward. Of course, the replacement refs probably would have declared it an incomplete pass, then spent 30 minutes reviewing the play, and ultimately changed the call to a fumble recovered by the green team, possibly also asking the game clock to be reset to 1 hour remaining . . .