If there's an obscure penalty that hasn't been called in 15 years

[MarcusRock]

I think whatever it is you're sitting on is also twitching and causing your brain to misinterpret common DL line movement and pointing out an OL who moved because he probably knew the playclock had expired. Nevermind that the player flagged is one of the top DL position players in the entire NFL. Have you seen this crap called on Aaron Donald or JJ Watt EVER?

Do Aaron Donald or JJ Watt, snap their head left when they are only moving right? False starting right after a Dlineman does this highlights it even more and the TE clearly moved in reaction to it. Was it an abrupt action to head fake left (as if he was coming at the TE) but only move right?

 

[dwreck27]

If you take your rule book to the field for every play you would get a holding call on every single play

That was a **** call in game full of them... those refs need at minimum get their game checks docked

 

[Kaiser]

How do you know it's picking and choosing and not just officials missing calls because there's not enough of them to monitor everything?

Your point (one post ago) was that you have to call everything in order to be fair. Now you are listing a bunch of non-calls, which was my point.

If a cop gives someone a ticket for jaywalking because they put one foot into the street, that's one thing in a small town. If its in a big city on a street where people run red lights on the same street every day, its a different issue.

 

[MarcusRock]

Your point (one post ago) was that you have to call everything in order to be fair. Now you are listing a bunch of non-calls, which was my point.

If a cop gives someone a ticket for jaywalking because they put one foot into the street, that's one thing in a small town. If its in a big city on a street where people run red lights on the same street every day, its a different issue.

You call everything to be fair if you see everything. It is impossible to see everything so there WILL be misses including calls made that are not reviewable.

People are acting like if a call is missed on the Cowboys it's now the New World Order looking to take out the NFL's most popular franchise. And that Goodell is fine with that because he grew up a Giants fan. Pretty big leap to take with only nuanced haze as "evidence." If the NFL's team colors are indeed only $green$, why would the poor, poor Cowboys be the target? That's backwards. It's just an emotional fan defense mechanism for losing or not having a nerve-racking situation turn out the way you needed it to.

It's like a road rage reaction except the threat here is not being able to boast to your buddies about how your team kicked their team's face in. It's basically self-preservation in the form of saving face (via a weak-ahzz excuse) instead of facing the reality that you can't always be in the winner's circle and that spit happens, sometimes to your team too. It was hilarious to me that when Stephen A. Smith said that Philly got robbed by the officials, people were falling all over themselves to deny it as excuse-making, sour grapes, providing counter-evidence, etc. when they say the exact same things he said and hate to see the very things they were rushing to say/provide. Bottom line is people want what they want and don't care about principle or reality so long as they get what they want. When you can't (due to reality) then CONSPIRACY! has to be the cause to create a monster that denied you the candy you were entitled to. Just not the real world.

 

[nalam]

This one tops the illegal sub penalty.

Never thought it would happen.


@CalPolyTechnique @MarcusRock and @aria can explain how this call is pretty common and not a weird penalty at al

Two of those 3 are not Cowboys fans and the other is a jerk.

You can decide who’s who

It is not accident when we take the history and average it out and still come out to be in the worst end, as you zoners have seen in another tthread the last 2 years opponent penalties are tallied and each year cowboys are at the bottom. Meaning the cowboy opponents however random gets fewer penalties called on them.

Also the most inopportune moments which unfavorably fVors the opponents is what worries me! Like those 2 15 yard penalties which gave Tampa a TD and also delay of game penalty on D which tried to give them another.

Its no secret , Teams like NE, Pittsburgh, Greenbay are darlings of officials for some reason. Look at the jets coachs remark against the officials for the GB game yesterday.

I agree refreeing is not easy and subjective but the odds of being like that should happen bothways and it does mostly, but in spite of that there is some bias when it comes to some teams. If anyone watched the SBs between Pitt and Seahawks or Pitt vs Cardinals will agree with me, I think

 

[glimmerman]

Was a big BS call. Delay on the Defense, for what? He shifted and pointed. But was set. As long as he isn’t over the LOS they can do what they want.

 

[Soth]

And who has watched every game to properly judge if they make calls consistently? The problem with fans is they think because something happens infrequently means it can never be called on us (even if it's correct) or else it's a CONSPIRACY! That's victim mentality.

People can say they want a fairly called game but can't say don't call rarely called penalties at the same time. Is it fair not to call them?

It is not fair if the rules are applied to the Cowboys only. If the officials apply a rule against the Cowboys but not against the other team that is called BIAS. Do you disagree? Do you think it is fair?

You seem to be missing my point. I said in my post that I am not trying to argue the correct application of the rule on the 4 examples I presented. The huddle penalty is the best example. It has been called twice in DECADES. Do you know anything about statistics and probabilities? The chances that the Cowboys and the Commanders are the only two teams to commit this penalty in 15 years is slim to none. The officials are not applying the rule consistently.

The Zeke helmet penalty is also insane. I knew this had been called on defenders, but I was referring to RBs (i thought it was obvious, but my bad). How many carries by RBs all year? Are you telling me Zeke is the ONLY one to lower their helmet like that??? Statistics don’t lie. The probability of these calls are low.

I will try to come up with the actual probabilities of getting called on these penalties on a separate post. The huddle penalty has a probability below 1%, then the Zeke one is about 0.01%!! I am being conservative but let’s assume 10,000 carries by RBs in a year.... 1 helmet penalty. Sure, the other 9999 carries were clean lol. Now add up all of those statistics and come up with the probability of a team being called on all of this BS. Either the Cowboys are the most undisciplined team in the history of the NFL or their bad luck defies all probabilities.

 

[Soth]

Marcus,

By the way, you seem to imply anyone that disagrees with a call is yelling conspiracy. Hopefully you can tone down this attitude so that we can have a normal conversation. It is not helpful to call everyone a conspiracy theorist to help your argument.

I don’t know why the Cowboys get called on these obscure penalties, but I am someone that believes in statistics, math and probabilities. Unusual or improbable stuff happens in the NFL, but for a team to get called on penalties with 0.01% probability on a consistent basis is unbelievable.

On the Ladoceur penalty, I remember him saying that he didn’t know it was a penalty so nobody warned him. He said he has been doing this for a lot of years and he didn’t know it was an infraction.

If you think the league is so fair, then explain this, why did Zeke get 6 games and the Giants kicker got 2 for the same exact infraction? This is all post-Ray rice. If the NFL does everything by the book right, it should not matter if the player is Zeke or someone else, right?. The reality is that the NFL is making this stuff up as they go.

 

[MarcusRock]

It is not fair if the rules are applied to the Cowboys only. If the officials apply a rule against the Cowboys but not against the other team that is called BIAS. Do you disagree? Do you think it is fair?

You seem to be missing my point. I said in my post that I am not trying to argue the correct application of the rule on the 4 examples I presented. The huddle penalty is the best example. It has been called twice in DECADES. Do you know anything about statistics and probabilities? The chances that the Cowboys and the Commanders are the only two teams to commit this penalty in 15 years is slim to none. The officials are not applying the rule consistently.

The Zeke helmet penalty is also insane. I knew this had been called on defenders, but I was referring to RBs (i thought it was obvious, but my bad). How many carries by RBs all year? Are you telling me Zeke is the ONLY one to lower their helmet like that??? Statistics don’t lie. The probability of these calls are low.

I will try to come up with the actual probabilities of getting called on these penalties on a separate post. The huddle penalty has a probability below 1%, then the Zeke one is about 0.01%!! I am being conservative but let’s assume 10,000 carries by RBs in a year.... 1 helmet penalty. Sure, the other 9999 carries were clean lol. Now add up all of those statistics and come up with the probability of a team being called on all of this BS. Either the Cowboys are the most undisciplined team in the history of the NFL or their bad luck defies all probabilities.

If you're going to talk statistics, do you have the yearly averages for penalties called all-time to know how many should be called per year? When you say the Cowboys suffer more than other teams in this regard, what are you comparing it to statistically to know whether the officials are applying something consistently? And how do you deal with a human element and expect things to be 100% efficient? Are they not allowed to miss things? People keep saying that the "probability is low" but can't ever come up with situations where these obscure penalties did occur similarly and weren't called. I keep hearing about this conveniently hazy eye test of things "happening everywhere" that never needs hard evidence. Ever. And honestly, who cares how often a penalty occurs? Who knew about the tuck rule before it happened? The Bulter play is not only on him but on the coaches who also should have known. Again, show me where it was done and not called. And it wasn't a huddle penalty. This is what I mean. People go straight into victim mode without even knowing exactly what they're upset about.

No one watches all the games so all they know is Cowboys games and when they don't get what they want in a situation, it's immediately "fishy" without having watched all the games of the other 31 teams to compare. All you're analyzing is close to home data. 1/32nds of a complete story and running with a theory. This is why when someone goes on a rant about a play, I actually try to break down what happened on a case by case basis with video and the rule book. You think people want to hear that though? No, they want what they want. But if someone breaks out a drilled-down stat of an anomaly you better believe hysteria will ensue, even when the overall numbers show nothing. People just want stuff to complain about and there's plenty there if they want to. I just like revealing reality and seeing what happens.

 

[MarcusRock]

Marcus,

By the way, you seem to imply anyone that disagrees with a call is yelling conspiracy. Hopefully you can tone down this attitude so that we can have a normal conversation. It is not helpful to call everyone a conspiracy theorist to help your argument.

I don’t know why the Cowboys get called on these obscure penalties, but I am someone that believes in statistics, math and probabilities. Unusual or improbable stuff happens in the NFL, but for a team to get called on penalties with 0.01% probability on a consistent basis is unbelievable.

On the Ladoceur penalty, I remember him saying that he didn’t know it was a penalty so nobody warned him. He said he has been doing this for a lot of years and he didn’t know it was an infraction.

If you think the league is so fair, then explain this, why did Zeke get 6 games and the Giants kicker got 2 for the same exact infraction? This is all post-Ray rice. If the NFL does everything by the book right, it should not matter if the player is Zeke or someone else, right?. The reality is that the NFL is making this stuff up as they go.

No, I'm saying that people who whine about only the Cowboys suffering horrible, horrible persecution at the hands of rogue official teams and the NFL are yelling conspiracy. Obscure penalties don't happen to other teams (like the tuck rule)? You surveyed all fan bases to see if they remember any? What else could you be implying from a low statistical probability "on a consistent basis" that other teams don't get (allegedly)? The Ladoceur penalty is indeed weird, just like the tuck rule but if it had happened to Cleveland in Week 2, no one would even remember or chalk it up to them being persecuted. People think things happen to the Cowboys because all they look at are Cowboys games. And with fan glasses to boot, so there's an emotional factor. It's the ultimate in universalism without even consulting the outside data. You can drum up any story in comparison if you never actually make a comparison. The Zeke situation was baloney in my opinion as well but wasn't Ray Rice railroaded too? No Ravens bias? Adrian Peterson was too. No Vikings bias? I don't know about the Giants player details to know whether it was the "exact same infraction" which should have carried the same suspension.

 

[Soth]

No, I'm saying that people who whine about only the Cowboys suffering horrible, horrible persecution at the hands of rogue official teams and the NFL are yelling conspiracy. Obscure penalties don't happen to other teams (like the tuck rule)? You surveyed all fan bases to see if they remember any? What else could you be implying from a low statistical probability "on a consistent basis" that other teams don't get (allegedly)? The Ladoceur penalty is indeed weird, just like the tuck rule but if it had happened to Cleveland in Week 2, no one would even remember or chalk it up to them being persecuted. People think things happen to the Cowboys because all they look at are Cowboys games. And with fan glasses to boot, so there's an emotional factor. It's the ultimate in universalism without even consulting the outside data. You can drum up any story in comparison if you never actually make a comparison. The Zeke situation was baloney in my opinion as well but wasn't Ray Rice railroaded too? No Ravens bias? Adrian Peterson was too. No Vikings bias? I don't know about the Giants player details to know whether it was the "exact same infraction" which should have carried the same suspension.

Fair enough. I am sure there is a way to prove this point. I will see if there is information out there on all penalties called the past two or three seasons to find if other teams are also victims of the “obscure penalty” problem.

One thing you fail to consider is that by looking at total plays vs # of times a penalty is called you are actually looking at the entire league and not just the Cowboys. Zeke is the only RB to be called on the helmet rule. I don’t need to watch all the other games to know this. So out of 10,000 carries by all RBs across the league, only Zeke has been called on this penalty. 1 in 10,000 is a very very low probability. Also, I have watched enough games this year to see many similar instances of RBs lowering their helmet just like Zeke (I didn’t record them because I didn’t expect to be debating this in CZ).

But I see your point regarding other teams and obscure penalties. I will try prove this point. If I am wrong I will admit it and shut up about this forever. But something tells me that other teams are not being called on multiple penalties with a 1 in 10,000 chance.

 

[MarcusRock]

Also, I have watched enough games this year to see many similar instances of RBs lowering their helmet just like Zeke (I didn’t record them because I didn’t expect to be debating this in CZ).

And therein lies the haze I speak of. People say "it happens every game" but can't find an example anywhere. If it happens every game, where was it in the Colts game or the Tampa game? We're still talking about this 2 games later so if there was counter-evidence of it not being called by rushers on ours or any team we've played, it'd have been presented I'm sure. Even if people could recall an example, I have those games on video and would pull it myself. Out of all the games where you've seen it happen multiple times allegedly, have you ever seen a RB turn back into the defender and aim his helmet down at him to deliver a blow? That's what Zeke did. I'm sure the officials saw it as unnecessary which is probably why they threw the flag. Keep going straight and do the same thing to brace for a hit (and even dish it out a little) and I don't think there's a flag. He lined him up and then ran back into him which is targeting.

 

[Soth]

And therein lies the haze I speak of. People say "it happens every game" but can't find an example anywhere. If it happens every game, where was it in the Colts game or the Tampa game? We're still talking about this 2 games later so if there was counter-evidence of it not being called by rushers on ours or any team we've played, it'd have been presented I'm sure. Even if people could recall an example, I have those games on video and would pull it myself. Out of all the games where you've seen it happen multiple times allegedly, have you ever seen a RB turn back into the defender and aim his helmet down at him to deliver a blow? That's what Zeke did. I'm sure the officials saw it as unnecessary which is probably why they threw the flag. Keep going straight and do the same thing to brace for a hit (and even dish it out a little) and I don't think there's a flag. He lined him up and then ran back into him which is targeting.

This is all highly judgmental. He is facing two defenders and lowers his helmet. Saying he is trying to deliver a blow is speculation. He has a defender pushing him on one side and and another coming straight ahead that is also lowering his helmet. I can try to pull evidence from another game but only if you will be reasonable. If I find another Rb lowering their helmet, are you just going to say, “oh but Zeke was really trying to hit the defender”? In that case I am not sure it makes sense to keep discussing it. You see things that are judgmental as straightforward and that is a complete difference of opinion between us.

 

[Soth]

By the way, I didn’t say it happens every game. I said that I don’t buy that it only happened once in 16 weeks / 10,000+ carries. Zeke and other RBs were perfect the rest of the time huh? They were able to execute cleanly 9,999 out of 10,000 even thought this is a new rule? Come on, do you really believe that? How many face masks are missed? How many pass interference do the officials ignore, but they have been perfect with the helmet rule? give me a break.

I don’t believe in a conspiracy but it would not surprise me if the refs were targeting Zeke with this rule. He is a physical back and he was one of the reasons they created the rule. But targeting a single player is also bias. Again, all I ask is that the rule is applied the same to everyone, all the time.

 

[MarcusRock]

This is all highly judgmental. He is facing two defenders and lowers his helmet. Saying he is trying to deliver a blow is speculation. He has a defender pushing him on one side and and another coming straight ahead that is also lowering his helmet. I can try to pull evidence from another game but only if you will be reasonable. If I find another Rb lowering their helmet, are you just going to say, “oh but Zeke was really trying to hit the defender”? In that case I am not sure it makes sense to keep discussing it. You see things that are judgmental as straightforward and that is a complete difference of opinion between us.

If you can't see targeting there, then you're right that it makes no sense to keep discussing it. Zeke appears to have his eyes on 24 the whole way. He knows he can outrun the first guy and decides to put a hit on the 2nd guy. The first guy pushing him was pushing in a direction opposite the direction Zeke decided to go in: away from the sideline. It was not a mere lowering of the head to brace. He intended to hit him and turned back inside to do it. Not only that but he led with his helmet and not the shoulder which is why he hurt himself on the play. That bothered me more than the dinky penalty. He's invaluable to this team and risked his health (especially considering Crawford now) trying to be big man on the gridiron.

By the way, I didn’t say it happens every game. I said that I don’t buy that it only happened once in 16 weeks / 10,000+ carries. Zeke and other RBs were perfect the rest of the time huh? They were able to execute cleanly 9,999 out of 10,000 even thought this is a new rule? Come on, do you really believe that? How many face masks are missed? How many pass interference do the officials ignore, but they have been perfect with the helmet rule? give me a break.

I don’t believe in a conspiracy but it would not surprise me if the refs were targeting Zeke with this rule. He is a physical back and he was one of the reasons they created the rule. But targeting a single player is also bias. Again, all I ask is that the rule is applied the same to everyone, all the time.

My whole point to conspiracy theorists is that officials missing calls happens everywhere so there's no doubt they've missed this call along with others in most games. So as a runner, why make it completely obvious by changing directions into a tackler and leading with your head to deliver a blow? Remember, it is not a foul to lower your head, but it is a foul to initiate contact that way. Straight from the rulebook (the red is what's been added to the rule this season):

ARTICLE 8. USE OF THE HELMET. It is a foul if a player lowers his head to initiate and make contact with his helmet against an opponent.​

 

[plymkr]

Uniform violation?

In the playoffs we'll get called for too many defenders tackling a ball carrier, or unnecessary use of feet while running. They're saving a couple good ones for us if we start getting momentum.

 

[Soth]

If you can't see targeting there, then you're right that it makes no sense to keep discussing it.

Done

 

[MarcusRock]

Done

Yep. Thought so. They all end like this.