They should just start giving them flags already, make it flag football, it's gonna be that one day anyway.
I was pleasantly surprised to see how quickly teams adjusted to the celebration rule, before scoring a TD. The referees seemed to handle these judgement calls with consistency. Don't know many that were out there on a wing. Just hope, if they do it, the new rule has no bias. But for big, powerful, physical teams, that seems unlikely.
I bet you that 80%-90% of the calls go against the defense...and 85%-90% of the time both players lower their heads in the contact. The running backs in the SEC almost always lower their heads just before contact and try to spear the defensive players. They use their own heads as weapons. I really have a pet peeve though about defensive backs going for the highlight reel hits instead of tackling...and Loston is the worst of the bunch. If he ever learns how to tackle, he'll improve his draft stock by at least a round.
Perhaps some of this legislation might improve tackling technique, in the long run, though I hope not. Bama is among the few who can consistently wrap up and get the player down, big advantage. The NFL is starting to call flagrant spearing at times, because it looks or sounds especially violent. On replay it sometimes proves to be nothing more then someone got blown up on a great hit. These are the best referees in the game and they are reacting to what they hear and think they see. And this lowering of head, someone has got to go to school and define action from reaction. If a player coils his head like a snake and spears the player, call it, otherwise, the helmet has an offensive and defensive purpose and always has. These spread teams have got to be loving it.
