Hitchens Facemask Call

[Idgit]

He is not good enough, hardly anybody on this defense is. We are 29th in points allowed and lost back to back home games scoring 30+ points. And lets be blatantly honest here, that bone headed pass on 2nd down was a monumental mistake. There was nobody in that stadium or watching on TV that didn't think Rogers with a 1:12 was going to go right down the field and score.

Like Nick Eatman said on The Break, when your defense is so bad that you cannot trust them to stop a team from going 75 yards in a min, that means there were serious mistakes made back in April in regards to this defense. Pretty much everybody on The Break, people on the Cowboy's payroll, pretty much all said it was beyond stupid to put this defense on the field to stop Rogers and instead should have milked the clock. That is not just what idiot fans like me are saying, that is what the Cowboy employees are saying.........not milking the clock and putting the game on the defense was a monumental botch.

I haven't heard it yet, but if that's what they're saying it's pretty dumb. That drive was fantastic other than the one stupid pass attempt.

None of that has anything to do with Hitchens though, really, who's a good player and only started his first game this weekend.

 

[TWOK11]

Rewatching the game (Why I don't know), but just over a minute to go in the first half: We have pretty much dominated outside of GB's first drive; we controlled TOP; we held them to six points; we have sacked ARod three times; we are about to have them in a third and long and bam a 15 yard facemask call on Hitchens leading to a TD. This kind of thing happens too often.

Face masks are almost always accidental and a product a hand being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Very rarely does a player make any effort to intentionally grasp a facemask.

It happens, and frankly outside of egregious instances shouldn't be a penalty.

 

[TwentyOne]

He didn't look like he was pulling it. But I don't remember what the actual rule is at this point.

2017 NFL Rulebook:

Article 14. Twisting, Pulling, or Turning the Facemask
No player shall grasp and control, twist, turn, push, or pull the facemask of an opponent in any direction.

Note: If a player grasps an opponent’s facemask, he must immediately release it. If he does not immediately release it and controls his opponent, it is a foul.

Penalty: For twisting, turning, pushing, pulling, or controlling the mask: Loss of 15 yards. The player may be disqualified if the action is flagrant. If the foul is by the defense, it is also an automatic first down.​

Source: http://operations.nfl.com/the-rules...4.-twisting,-pulling,-or-turning-the-facemask