Pushing teammates forward. Should it be legal or not?

[GoBills808]

Just now, Logic said:

Suppose that in the AFC championship game, the Bills only need to stop an opponent on 4th down to seal a victory.

They call the perfect defense, the defenders execute, and two linebackers converge on the opposing ball-carrier 1 yard deep in the backfield, stopping him definitively for a loss. The defenders begin to ease up just the slightest bit, figuring the play is dead and they don't want to risk a personal foul. But the refs don't blow the whistle, so three of the opponent's teammates run up to the player and push him forward for a 1st down.

Perfect playcall, perfect execution, but the subjectivity of when to blow the whistle leads to the play continuing, and the ball carrier happens to have more guys around to push him forward than the defense does to push him backward. The playcall and execution are moot, and sheer numbers and brute strength win out, with aid to referee subjectivity.

Would you still feel it's a non-issue?

If you can't accommodate for brute strength and referee subjectivity I don't think you should be an NFL fan

[DrDawkinstein]

2 minutes ago, Logic said:

The playcall and execution are moot, and sheer numbers and brute strength win out, with aid to referee subjectivity.

 

How is that a bad thing over trickeration that subverts a more talented team's athletic and physical abilities?

[MJS]

Heck yes, it should be legal. I find those plays very exciting. It would be a shame to take away something that has been a part of the game since the beginning.

[BarleyNY]

3 minutes ago, Logic said:

Suppose that in the AFC championship game, the Bills only need to stop an opponent on 4th down to seal a victory.

They call the perfect defense, the defenders execute, and two linebackers converge on the opposing ball-carrier 1 yard deep in the backfield, stopping him definitively for a loss. The defenders begin to ease up just the slightest bit, figuring the play is dead and they don't want to risk a personal foul. But the refs don't blow the whistle, so three of the opponent's teammates run up to the player and push him forward for a 1st down.

Perfect playcall, perfect execution, but the subjectivity of when to blow the whistle leads to the play continuing, and the ball carrier happens to have more guys around to push him forward than the defense does to push him backward. The playcall and execution are moot, and sheer numbers and brute strength win out, with aid to referee subjectivity.

Would you still feel it's a non-issue?

Would it change your option if the Bills were on offense in your scenario? 

[MJS]

4 minutes ago, Logic said:

Suppose that in the AFC championship game, the Bills only need to stop an opponent on 4th down to seal a victory.

They call the perfect defense, the defenders execute, and two linebackers converge on the opposing ball-carrier 1 yard deep in the backfield, stopping him definitively for a loss. The defenders begin to ease up just the slightest bit, figuring the play is dead and they don't want to risk a personal foul. But the refs don't blow the whistle, so three of the opponent's teammates run up to the player and push him forward for a 1st down.

Perfect playcall, perfect execution, but the subjectivity of when to blow the whistle leads to the play continuing, and the ball carrier happens to have more guys around to push him forward than the defense does to push him backward. The playcall and execution are moot, and sheer numbers and brute strength win out, with aid to referee subjectivity.

Would you still feel it's a non-issue?

Sheer numbers and brute strength are part of the game of football and always should be. As a defense, you know that pushing the pile is part of the game. It is something you need to account for on most plays. If you don't, you'll get burned by it.

 

Just like a fake punt. You called the perfect defense and stopped the team on 3rd down, just to get a trick play that hurts you. Tough. Suck it up and go play the next down.

 

Referee subjectivity is also part of the game and always has been. There is no way around it. The best you can do is try to make rules clear and simple. The more complicated they are, the harder it is for the refs fo officiate and easier it is to make a mistake.

24 minutes ago, wjag said:

Until it's officially not, it's okay.  The problem is, it is changing the refs call on momentum stops.  Hard to fairly legislate it now.  Does feel like it's not in the spirit of the game though

They complained about the hurry up offense and tried to ban that because it wasn't in the spirit of the game.

 

The play is perfectly legal and I have no clue why anyone has an issue with it. I'm seriously stumped as to why this is controversial.

[947]

 It's annoying when teams do it now, but imagine if teams start running wedge plays on 3rd/4th & short.

 

When I coached 10yr old football, we played against a team that ran a wedge run play a lot. They'd run it out of double TEs with 2 RBs, the QB would take the snap & the 7 guys on the line would form a wedge behind the center, the RBs would get behind the QB & push. At that age, it worked well & sometimes broke into a really big gain. Assisting the runner was against the rules, but the refs wouldn't call it. It wasn't until we had the NT cut the Center that we could stop it.

[Epstein's Mother]

 

Maybe tackling below the waist will come back into vogue.  Kinda hard to get pushed forward when a guy has your legs wrapped up.

[beacon]

Here's a basic idea....defenders need to tackle lower. Everyone likes the brute strength high tackle. Hit below the knee, wrap up and 95 out of 100 ball carriers are going down. Bills have missed tackles more often than not from hitting too high. Just my observation. Anybody else see it too? 

 

[DrDawkinstein]

9 minutes ago, MJS said:

They complained about the hurry up offense and tried to ban that because it wasn't in the spirit of the game.

 

The play is perfectly legal and I have no clue why anyone has an issue with it. I'm seriously stumped as to why this is controversial.

 

It's blowing my mind that anyone who knows football beyond the 2000s would say it isnt in the spirit of the game. It IS the original spirit of the game!

[Don Otreply]

Well, after all it is American Rugby, so, yes, it should be legal, just sayin,   

[MJS]

1 minute ago, beacon said:

Here's a basic idea....defenders need to tackle lower. Everyone likes the brute strength high tackle. Hit below the knee, wrap up and 95 out of 100 ball carriers are going down. Bills have missed tackles more often than not from hitting too high. Just my observation. Anybody else see it too? 

Defenders wrap up the ball carrier high because they are waiting for a teammate to come rip the ball out. They will intentionally hold a ball carrier up, waiting for teammates.

 

I wonder if people are OK with that and think that is in the spirit of the game, but not receiving help from teammates to push the pile. Pretty incredible.

[Ridgewaycynic2013]

On the field:  Undecided.

At the peeler bar:  No.  Homey is perfectly able to get in trouble by himself.

[DabillsDaBillsDaBills]

It's only a matter of time until we see a major injury from this.

 

It doesn't feel like a football play to me and I'd like to see it removed. 

 

[Logic]

20 minutes ago, DrDawkinstein said:

 

You are conflating the issue of determining Forward Progress, with this non-issue, basic play of pushing a pile on a running play that has been part of the game since its inception.

 

Forward Progress is a different issue and highly subjective.

 

The idea or act of pushing a runner, isnt. We want to stop them? Then stop them.

There are a few replies to my most recent post here that say some iteration of "it's been part of the game since its inception" or "it's always been part of the game and always will be".

That's not true, though. For most of the modern history of NFL football, assisting the runner in this fashion was illegal. It was only made legal in 2005.

Go watch games from between, say, 1990 and 2019 and you don't see this happening much, if at all. Certainly not to the extent that it's happening across the league right now.

https://www.rookieroad.com/football/assisting-runner-penalty/#:~:text=For a long time%2C pushing,pulling or lifting the runner.


"Assisting the runnier is defined somewhat differently across the leagues. For a long time, pushing as well as pulling the runner was universally prohibited, but the NFL made it legal in 2005 to push the runner to advance them forward...

In high school leagues, pushing the runner to gain yardage is still illegal. The rule has stayed in place mainly to prevent the offensive team from gaining an unfair advantage. To a lesser extent, it also protects the runner from being tackled for a prolonged period of time, which can put them at higher risk of injury."
 

[par73]

Didn't realize it has been legal for so long. Yes, I'd like to see it eliminated.

[Logic]

25 minutes ago, GoBills808 said:

If you can't accommodate for brute strength and referee subjectivity I don't think you should be an NFL fan

"Accomadating" brute strength and making rules that cause brute strength to be more important than skill or playcalling are not the same thing. 

 

[Straight Hucklebuck]

I enjoy it and think it adds to the game. 

 

Seeing how many more yards your team can add to a given run, or pass and catch.  

 

I hope it is not taken away, it gives a good offensive line another way to impact the game, and is a measure of a teams awareness. 

 

 

[Logic]

17 minutes ago, DrDawkinstein said:

 

It's blowing my mind that anyone who knows football beyond the 2000s would say it isnt in the spirit of the game. It IS the original spirit of the game!

The story of American football is a story of evolution and change.

It started out as a brutal game, not far removed from rugby. Tight formations of men in scrums leaned on each other to try to gain yardage. You had three downs to gain five yards. Even that was not very easily done. Most games in the first 30 years of football were punting battles. Punters in those days were afforded the same national fame and acclaim that quarterbacks are today.

You used to have to tackle a player to the ground and keep him pinned there for a series of seconds or until the ball carrier yelled "down" for the tackle to count. Clotheslines, punching, and headslaps were legal for years.

Football player deaths were so common in this brutal version of football that the president of the United States had to step in to demand changes. It wasn't until some 90 years into the game's history that forward passing even became a viable, regular part of the game.

If you could somehow watch a game of football from 1890, it would BARELY resemble the game we see today.

The point is that American football has seen constant change and evolution. "The original spirit of the game" can be used to describe lots and lots of things that no longer take place in football. And again, pushing a teammate forward was only made legal in 2005. For many years before that, it was not legal.

Edited December 5, 2022 by Logic

[Alphadawg7]

1 hour ago, Logic said:

As I watched multiple games on Sunday, it was impossible to ignore.

In game after game, players were stopped by a horde of defenders, only for a group of their teammates to rally to the pile, pushing the whole mass of humanity for an extra 3-7 yards.

When it happens, it looks less like pro football and more like a rugby scrum.

I've been reading a book called How Football Became Football: 150 Years of the Game's Evolution, and in it, I learned that American football used to look a lot like what we've seen recently: huge piles of humanity pushing on each other, fighting for every yard. Basically, it wasn't far removed from rugby when it began. Players even had loops sewn onto their pants for a time for their teammates to grab onto to either push or pull them more easily.

One of the earliest debates in football was how to spread the game out, make it less dangerous, and less of a tedious "three yards and a cloud of dust" affair. These "momentum plays", as they called them, lead to a ton of injuries, and to a frankly ugly, more brutish, less exciting form of football. The ability of a running back or receiver to gain yardage is de-emphasized in favor of the ability of a group of players to push harder than another group of players. 

After years of this ugly, rugby-style pile pushing, rule changes in football eventually disallowed it. For most of the history of modern pro football as we know it, pushing or pulling the pile in the manner we have recently seen has not been allowed. In 2006, a rule change made pushing the pile legal again (though pulling is still technically not legal). For whatever reason, it took until this season for it to really become as common and prevalent as it has. 

The question is, should it be allowed? Are these big pile-push scrums really American Football? I'm curious to know how other football fans feel about this issue.

 

Yes it should be allowed.  There is no reason not to allow it IMHO, its a team sport, so teammates should be allowed to assist.  I see a lot of people complain about this, but honestly I don't get why anyone would have an issue about this is a full contact and physical game like the NFL.  

 

More importantly, this would be almost impossible to regulate if they were to make this illegal.  Those piles get crazy, and while we at home have the benefit of camera angles and cameras high above the pile of men, the refs on the ground do not.  To expect them to catch these views in these big piles is an impossible task and so many incidents would be completely subject to interpretation when the piles are crowded.  

 

And Rugby is a substantially tougher sport and its legal there.  We have already powder puffed up the NFL enough as it is.  Let it be, its been this way all through football history, no reason to change it if you ask me.  

[LeGOATski]

I love it