I applaud the NFL for trying to protect players, but the new rule regarding a defenseless player are still too ambiguous. They keep toting out the play where Daunte Robinson hit DeSean Jackson as an example of an illegal play. I've seen it 20 times now in both slow motion and normal speed, and every time, the play looks perfectly legal. The hit was NOT helmet to helmet; the player did NOT launch himself at the receiver; the hit was NOT to the neck; the hit was CLEARLY shoulder (Robinson) to chest (Jackson)...every time I see it. The speed of the play it what made it so brutal...Jackson is one of the fastest guys in the league, running full tilt across the middle of the defense, and the cornerback is standing there waiting for him. All he did was lower his shoulder and plant it into Jackson's chest.
I ask the NFL rules officials! What, pray tell, was Robinson supposed to do to make a legal play? Back up and wait for Jackson to catch the ball, set himself, and then evade him? Hit him in the legs? At that speed, it may have broken one!
They also compare that hit to the one Ray Lewis put on Todd Heap. A few points that make this an unfair comparison:
1) Lewis is 250+ pounds, Robinson 180
2) Todd Heap is 250+ pounds, Jackson about 180
3) Todd Heap runs a 6-flat 40, Jackson a 4.2
4) Heap had just released from the line of scrimmage and was being covered, so he was not running at anywhere near full speed, but Jackson was running free across the formation
5) the speed involved in the plays differs so greatly, you can't even compare them
Can you even IMAGINE how hurt Jackson would have been if Lewis had hit him in the chest the way he hit Todd Heap (which, incidentally, is exactly how Robinson did it)?
Hits to the head of a defenseless player can and should be avoided, but the current poster child for an illegal hit is no such thing, because neither players head or neck was hit (yes, the side of Robinson's helmet does make contact with Jackson shoulder pad, but it was glancing as his shoulder hit Jackson).
The bottom line is this: Not every play where someone gets hurt is illegal, and not every play that looks brutal is illegal.
