NFL Should Enforce Safety Rules on Helmets

The NFL this week fined three players tens of thousands of dollars each for particularly brutal tackles involving leading with the helmet.

There's been a backlash among defensive players who say they're just playing hard, that they don't know any other way to play, and so on. One of the fined players wasn't even called for a penalty on the field. Something's wrong with this picture!

According to NFL rules, a tackler may not use his helmet to butt, spear or ram an opponent. It's a 15-yard penalty.

So those who are saying that fining players is wrong because it will compel the defenders to play soft should realize that hitting with the helmet is already prohibited. They've just been getting away with it for years.

Look at footage of games in the 60's and you'll see none of this tackling with the helmet as a weapon. It got started with the Raiders in the 70's and was considered cheap shots. They paralyzed Patriots WR Stingley.

In recent years, it's been all about protecting the QB--leaving receivers and runners free game for assault. The only helmet-contact-related rule they're enforcing seems to be helmet-to-helmet contact.

But helmet-to-anything contact is forbidden by the aforementioned anti-spearing rule. And it should be. The helmet is a protective device, not meant to be a weapon. You're supposed to tackle with your body.

If the NFL would enforce its rule on anti-spearing--maybe, say, sending a memo out to all defensive coordinators and special-teams coordinators that they will be penalized 15 yards every time a tackler leads aggressively with his helmet--you should see the number of such incidents decline substantially.

Steven (Starjet) Kearney

Boise State BCS Controversy

It's a long season, but the Boise State Broncos took a big first step forward by defeating highly-ranked Virginia Tech. This raises the possibility of another unbeaten season, and all of the controversy that will occur if once again they are denied a place in the BCS Championship Game due to overall weakness of schedule.

A lot of people think that college football needs a playoff system to decide the national champion--which team is #1--and I agree. The current system is flawed because, though it's called the Bowl Championship Series, all it really involves is the two top-ranked teams playing each other in a championship game. When is one game a "series"?

Solving the problem seems simple enough: include either the top-4 or top-8 teams, seed them 1 through 4, or 1 through 8 and have a standard playoff like every other sport does. It's not rocket science!

However, an 8-team playoff might be too inclusive, and it would take too long. But a 4-team playoff seems too exclusive because there's a good chance it would leave out an undefeated minor conference champion or two--such as Boise State or Utah in recent years.

So I would like to suggest a compromise between a 4-team and an 8-team playoff. Call it a 4-team-plus playoff. The "plus" would include any other team that wins all its games--call them "wild cards" (WC). If there's one such team (WC-1) then they would play the #4 team in what the NCAA basketball tournament refers to as a "play-in" game. If there are two such teams, the lesser-ranked team (WC-2) would be matched against the #3 team, and so on.

This proposed playoff system would not extend the season at all. The #1 vs #4/WC-1 and the #2 vs #3/WC-2 games would be alternated among the major bowl games, and the BCS championship game would be played the following week--same as now--only the participants would be the victors of those two designated bowl games.

This system would give teams like Boise State a shot at the title, but they'd have to earn it---by beating the #4, #1 and #2 or #3 (or an undefeated team that had beaten #2 and #3)in consecutive weeks.

AT&T's Slick Ad End

An often-seen TV commercial boasts about how AT&T covers 97% of "USAmericans" (as long as they don't stray into certain rural or wilderness areas).

The commercial is a visual feast of American architecture--Gateway Arch, Hoover Dam, etc.--getting covered in orange drapes a la the artist Christo. They didn't actually do it--it was computer-generated.

At the very end, they cut to a satellite view of northern North America--you can see the Great Lakes near the bottom of the screen--the shot only lasts for a couple of seconds, so one supposes it's not an effort at boosting service to Canada.

But the continent is noticeably painted uniformly the same orange color--which might be described as rust- or copper-colored. This makes the shot eerily resemble all those depressing Gulf oil slick TV news bits people have been seeing the past three months.

That's certainly not the kind of association AT&T would have wanted. One can only surmise that the commercial was tested out on focus groups before the Gulf oil disaster.

And, wouldn't you know it, in-between drafts of this paper, there was a major oil line rupture in the Great Lakes area!

Steven (Starjet) Kearney

Bad Names for Cars (that sound good until you consider what they mean:

Miasma Fiasco Entropy
Cretin Crony Craven
Mirage Enigma Phantom
Forerunner Penultimate Vacillator
Delilah Jeremiad Pariah
Sundry Desultory Slacker
Novice Dilettante Tyro
Angina Atrophy Aphasia
Edema Vapid Exiguous

Zebra Kaleidoscope

Goal for World Cup: Get It Right!

Argentina's controversial goal in its World Cup round-of-16 win over Mexico is another example of the difficulty officials have when the demands put on them exceed the abilities of normal human vision. This goal marked the third time in the past few days (the second today) that officials obviously were wrong on a goal scored/not scored call.

The goal-scorer in this instance, Carlos Tevez, was clearly closer to the goal than any opponent--offsides--when the ball was kicked by Lionel Messi. We know that because we can view the instant replay from the side. However, no official was so fortuitously located.

The play, as is often the case in soccer, unfolded quickly. The offsides could not have been anticipated, and so no official could have hoped to get into a spot where he could view the play from that side angle.

In fact two defenders had Tevez nearly bracketed at the moment Messi kicked the ball, and by the time it reached Tevez, they were dead-even with him. The officials were naturally looking at Messi when he kicked it, and their eyes followed the ball to where it reached Tevez--who by then was no longer offsides.

The offsides rule is a difficult one to enforce accurately because it is based on where player A is when player B kicks the ball. Humans have two eyes but they cannot focus separately. We must shift our eyes'collective focus back and forth. During that process, time lapses and things change.

We can clearly see the advantages of instant replay:  a choice of viewing angles, the ability to freeze the picture frame, repeat viewing.

So why not give each team the opportunity to challenge up to, say, two scoring/not scoring calls per game? In soccer, where every goal is critical, it makes sense to bring in the instant replay on goals scored/not scored calls.

Play is stopped for a while anyway after a goal while the scorers celebrate and then everyone moves to midfield area. Give the coach, say 30 seconds after goal is scored to protest it.

Have the fourth official hooked-up to review the instant replay immediately and if the call appears questionable, bring in the referee to decide it. The referee remains the final arbiter so his/her authority is not undermined.

If the call is upheld, the challenging team is one-and-done in that department. If the call is reversed, the challenging team can do so one more time.

It's a bit trickier with goals that should have been counted but were missed--like England's in loss to Germany or USA's in draw with Slovenia. That's partly because play ordinarily continues after the non-goal.

Perhaps an electronic monitor could be triggered whenever the plane of the goal is broken. But they'd need to be able to distinguish between the ball and a player (pattern recognition), and/or have "hits" referred to instant replay. Quickly flagging these possible missed goal calls would avoid interrupting fast breaks going the other way. They might take a cue from the National Hockey League's use of sirens.

This system would work in the cases like the English goal that wasn't seen by the referee. The electronic trigger would alert the fourth official who would check the videotape. If it looks like a score (ball completely over the goal line), the referee would be asked to make a determination. If, however, it's ultimately ruled no-goal, play would simply resume at the place the ball was last touched by the team last touching it.

Probably most difficult to correct are subjective situations such as the USA goal that was disallowed because the referee thought there was a foul by the Americans on the play. Since the ball went in the net, a point was taken off the scoreboard--so it should definitely be a challengeable call. The challenge should be restricted to the call that caused the goal to be disallowed.

The coach should be given 30 seconds from the time the goal is disallowed to challenge the call. The referee would then review the videotape to determine whether the disallowance should stand or a goal be tallied.

July 2, 2010
The headline question of the day is: Can Ghana Gana Again? (Or: Is Ghana Gonna Gana Again?)

Steven (Starjet) Kearney

"Gay-isms"

In recognition of Gay Awareness month, here are some proposed "GAY-ISMS"

SUPERLATIVES
That's remarkgayble!
How fabgaylous!
Simply spectacgaylar!
You're ungaylievable!

DRAMA QUEENS
"To gay or not to gay...."
"all for gay and gay for all"

GAY SOCIETY
they're gayting
how fascigating
he's a gayonnaire
Grand Gayman Island
your luckgay day
they're engayged
a party invigaytion
a big celegaytion
a gayted community
"way to gay"
adopting a gayby
found on e-gay
take a vagaytion
happy holigays

JOHN LAW NEWS
on the Togay Show
the instigaytor
esgayped from prison
chase on the expressgay
armed and gayngerous
you can gayggle him
under investigaytion

MISCELLGAYNEOUS
you're exaggergayting
are you OGay?
oh it's all gay, it's all gay!
United States of Amerigay
yestergay's news
gay-tech
a gaynabler
a false gaylarm