Twitter: Great explanation on Shepard's illegal pick

[RonWashington]

Thanks for posting this!!!!

Shepard was at the 41 and moved 3 yards to the 44 to initiate the contact. That's called OPI.

Joe Buck disagrees .

 

[Typhus]

Looking at the clip, his left knee bangs into Diggs and then he lands slightly awkwardly on it. I wonder if that weakened his ACL? I feel sorry for him, hope he can make it back next season.

Some players are just injury magnets.

 

[nalam]

I don't know if he meant to pick Diggs or not, but that's the reason I don't mind the penalty being called. He clearly picked Diggs off, practically decleating him. Whether there was intent or not is open to interpretation. Usually things go sideways when officials have to do a lot of interpreting. If they had determined that he was just running his route and the contact was incidental, I would have understood that as well.

Karma came back to haunt him, non contact injury in the last possession, out for the year !

 

[nalam]

It definitely a pick for Golladay to get free as he was bent on getting in the way of Diggs deliberately.

 

[JustChip]

He did look at Diggs prior to contact, and he actually braced for the impact and kinda lunged at the point of contact. He was definately trying to Pick Diggs, but he did a really good job at it to the point it was questionable. It was the right call, despite the effort by Buck to make it seem like Dallas got the big break with the call.

I said last night on the game thread him leaving his feet was the deal maker. It might not’ve been called if not for that. Zero reason to leave his feet since the ball wasn’t coming to him and him having to jump to get it. Buck can pound sand!

 

[speedkilz88]

Maybe. I don't think from watching it that Shepherd was looking to pick him. I thought he was looking back at the QB the whole time. Usually when players are running a pick play, they glance at the defender because they want to make sure they have the contact lined up. The natural progression of that route may have been meant to run interference with Diggs, but I'm not sure it was meant to make contact with him.

At that point it wasn't a route. It was a scramble drill at that, Shepard did a circle.

 

[Zman5]

Him launching himself toward Diggs at the point of impact for no reason (the ball wasn't thrown to him) makes it obvious it was intentional.

 

[Runwildboys]

Yep. Buoy can see Shepard sneak a peek at Diggs just before he runs into him. It was no accident.

Pulling his knee up to make sure he didn't get hurt too...and that was after pushing Brown.

 

[FVSTONE]

The officiating last night was downright F-ing horrible! Two non-calls could have cost the Boys the game last night, but they fought hard against TWO opponents and WON!

 

[TequilaCowboy]

At least they got this call right. But really screwed up those on Noah which were even more flagrant. Unbelievable.

 

[viman96]

IMO it was a clear OPI. Shepard came off the ground and leaned into Diggs. He (Shepard) did not make any attempt to avoid the collision.

 

[gimmesix]

At that point it wasn't a route. It was a scramble drill at that, Shepard did a circle.

Yeah, I agree on that one. I think he was trying to work back to the quarterback. Whether he didn't initially see Diggs and or he purposely picked him, I don't know. We have enough amateur sleuths here who think they have it figured out.

My personal feelings are he jumped hoping to avoid contact. When you're moving fast and someone else is moving fast, it can be hard to get out of the way. I think that's why he was upset with the call because he wasn't trying to purposely collide with Diggs. But again, I don't know that, so I can't say the officials weren't right to throw the flag. He clearly interfered whether he meant to or not and picking off DBs can be dangerous.

 

[gimmesix]

Yeah, I don't think it was a good call. Diggs wasn't even covering Sheppard and comes off his own man to get in Sheppard's path. Either Sheppard stops on his route or keeps going. Receivers are always taught to keep going and it looked to me like he just braced to protect himself.

This is why I don't mind the call, though, because all we really have to go on are opinions about it. Many on here see it as a deliberate pick while some of us see it as an accident. It's not like the two non-calls of defensive holding/interference on the Brown plays. Those were clear. The OPI could have gone either way.

 

[rnr_honeybadger]

The irony is that he launched himself at Diggs and could have really hurt Diggs. Then at the end of the game Shepherd gets carted off the field

 

[BotchedLobotomy]

Yep. Buoy can see Shepard sneak a peek at Diggs just before he runs into him. It was no accident.

He also lowers his shoulder. Shepard knew what he was doing

 

[Creeper]

I have to disagree but I won't make a big deal about it. I thought the collision was incidental. I don't think Shepard was attempting to block Diggs.

But like all the bad calls last night, it's over and done. The Giants can send the video to the NFL offices and ask for an explanation and the league will respond. The Cowboys were the losers in the officiating though. They had some drives ended that should have continued because of Giants penalties while the Giants got some 3rd down conversions from penalty that they did not deserve. The Anthony Barr holding call was as cheap as it gets considering how two guys held Noah Brown from going out for a pass, and another guy tackled him in the end zone.

 

[MapleLeaf]

he literally jumps into Diggs.. I mean come on...

At the time I thought it was a bad call.

After replaying the footage about 20 times and doing forward and rewind Shepard attempts to gain height advantage when there is no reason for him to do so...unless you are bracing for a collision.

There was no ball to jump for.

Typically in a collision you would do one of two things. Turtle to get smaller and reduce the area tat contact can be made. Hence players lowering their shoulders and going down. Or you will take a commanding height position knowing your center of gravity is higher than the other and they would take the brunt of the collision with the weaker part of their body.

Go low to snap their ankles or jump high and take out their head.

At some point you can see both know collision is impending. Shepard knows it and Diggs knows it.

If the rule is based on collision avoidance I think that Shepard did not achieve that.

 

[john van brocklin]

Nice
Thanks for posting....

 

[Knotamus]

Pretty obvious

Anybody else ever notice how Aikman always seems to side against the Cowboys with his opinions?

During the game.. I had a few other choice words that I said ab Aikman.. ecentially I told him to “Shut up!”

 

[Oz-of-Cowboy-Country]

You can't de-cleat a guy by accident. You always have to put some effort into that. They were going to collide by accident, but Shepard put some effort into de-cleating Diggs. The flag should have been thrown for unsportsman-like conduct, because he could have extended his arms and used his to soften the contact. Instead he cocked his arm and punched Diggs with his shoulder. Or threw his shoulder into Diggs, as most would say.