NFL Rules Committee is Considering Taking Away Yet Another Play the Patriots Do Well
Shea McClellin Blocks FG Attempt, Leads to Blount TD! | Patriots vs. Ravens | NFL Wk. 14 Highlights https://t.co/HFlki4zbQH pic.twitter.com/ljOh9jnUF5
— NFL World (@NFLWrld) December 13, 2016
.
Patriots.com – The days of Jamie Collins, Shea McClellin or any other athletic defender jumping over the line to block a field goal or PAT may be over.
The so-called “leaping” technique that Collins mastered in his time in New England and which earned McClellin a questionable penalty in Super Bowl LI may be in the cross hairs of the NFL Competition Committee thanks to a recommendation from the NFLPA.
According to the Washington Post, the NFLPA at a meeting on Wednesday at the 2017 NFL Scouting Combine proposed to ban the technique with an eye on player safety.
“The jumping over on the field goal, I think, is just leading to a really dangerous play for everybody,” Eric Winston, offensive lineman and NFLPA president, said via the Post. “If you jump over the center, the jumper is in a really bad spot. He can land on his head.”
OK, now it’s a party. The NFL offseason officially doesn’t begin until the Rules Committee is talking about outlawing something the Patriots do well. It’s a rite of Spring. Like having someone throw out the first pitch on Opening Day or having an old Masters champ drive the ceremony first tee shot at Augusta.
When Jamie Collins leaped the Colts’ center to block an extra point in 2015, it didn’t move the needle for anyone because he’s so freakishly athletic. But then when Shea McClellin did it to the Ravens last December and then again in the Super Bowl, it became obvious this is a thing they work on. And therefore, the first order of business in the offseason is putting and end to it by rule.
Two years ago, John Harbaugh went to the Rules Committee whining about the Tackle Eligible rule he couldn’t figure out how to defend, so they banned it without further deliberation. (Which didn’t stop Harbaugh from running the exact same play last year, but I digress.) In 2003 and ’04, Bill (Na)Polian couldn’t stand the sight of his finesse receivers being beaten down by a physical Patriots secondary, so he used his position on the Committee to basically outlaw defense and ruin football forever. Because in today’s NFL, when the Patriots innovate something, the league has two choices: Figure out how to stop it, or make it illegal. And they will choose the coward’s way out every time.
Meanwhile, Belichick goes in there every year with simple, modest and neutral proposals to make the game better and which don’t benefit any one team, and they invariably get shot out of the sky. It took him years to get the Committee to sign off on moving the extra point back to make it a competitive play. But they still won’t approve cameras in the pylons, claiming it would be too expensive for a multibillon dollar enterprise. Which is pure horseshit.
But mark my words, this rule will sail through. And one of the most electrifying plays in football will be gone for good. And not for safety reasons. If the NFLPA cared about safety, they’d stop appealing every fine for helmet-to-helmet hits and unnecessary roughness calls. And so far the death toll on leaping the center on kick attempts still remains at one. Safety my ass. This is all about trying to level the playing field and make it harder for the Patriots to win. And like all the other attempts, it will fail miserably. I look forward to next year when they try to ban forward passes from guys whose names end in “a-d-y.”