A lot has been made recently of the levels football officials go to in order to protect quarterbacks. There are memes floating around on social media about defensive linemen being flagged for tackling the quarterback without first laying down a pillow for him. While it’s all well and good to protect their health, there’s another group of football players that could use some protection: defensive linemen.
I am no expert on anything team-sports related, but I do know that blocks in the back are illegal. Yet in one of the recent CMU football games against CSU-Pueblo on Oct. 17, I witnessed play after play where a Thunderwolf offensive linemen shoved a Maverick defenseman to the ground from behind.
Every time I expected to see a flag and a penalty called, but apparently the officials had better things to do than pay attention to it; even when it was blatant and right in front of them. Worse than the fact that some of those plays resulted in big gains for Colorado Mesa University’s opponent, many Mavericks were helped off the field due to injuries.
In the most recent game against Dixie State in the Homecoming game, tensions were flying the entire game and the Trailblazers were taking cheap shots left and right. Now, DSU did get called for 15 different penalties during the game, however, at times the game would get way out of hand in which players on both sides could’ve have been injured.
Back to the game against CSU-Pueblo–would, a few flags have changed the outcome of the game? No. CSU Pueblo was dominant in the game. This isn’t the sad cry of a heartbroken fan saying the officials handed the game to the opponent. Moreover, a few penalties called against CSU Pueblo for illegal blocks in the back would have gotten them to clean up their act. They wouldn’t have been able to act like thugs on the field at the cost of player safety.
The result of that message was endangered players. Sometimes that endangerment led to an injury. That can’t be allowed to happen.
In an age where quarterbacks are coddled to the point that tackling them is almost forbidden, why is it okay to be so careless about defensive linemen? Is it because they’re big mountains of muscle so they’re seen as being unbreakable?
They are tough. No doubt about it. Large men repeatedly slamming their bodies against each other with violent force have to be able to endure a lot of punishment. However, all those jarring impacts take a strong toll.
When you take such levels of force and apply it to a player that is unable to defend himself, because he was shoved to the ground from behind, it is a recipe for disaster. When officials allow that kind of force to be applied over and over, it is only a matter of time before something in the player’s body will give way. Then there’s injury; sometimes serious injury.
That’s where bad officiating stops being a nuisance and can be considered gross negligence. According to law.com, gross negligence is “carelessness which is in reckless disregard for the safety or lives of others and is so great it appears to be a conscious violation of other people’s rights to safety. It is more than simple inadvertence, but it is just shy of being intentionally evil.”
Over and over again, officials chose not to call the illegal blocks. It would be difficult to sell the case that they never once saw something happening right in front of them that was readily apparent to all onlookers. Choosing not to call such penalties could be considered a reckless disregard for the safety or lives of others; repeatedly making the same choice could be considered a conscious violation of the players’ rights to safety.
This is not a call to action to legally assail football officials. This is a pleading to them to do the right thing. Officials should absolutely keep protecting quarterbacks, but they need to keep everybody’s safety in mind. Defensive linemen deserve protection too.
