Elbow hit to KJ that took him out of the game? Video proof

[Pandion Haliaetus]

Pretty funny, Tical, and I do hope for an explanation.

You pretty much defined Frank Clark as an idiot punk and put all the blame on him for the alterication he had with Rivers.

Yet you are defining what Dunlap did to Wright was a "textbook" block and the right thing to do?

So let us get this straight for Dunlap he made a text book block attacking KJ Wright in the shoulder. At the point of impact, he had Wright beat, a man that size easily could have just chipped Wright out of the play with a mere shove.

But Dunlap went full King Kong after his legit block to Wright's shoulder by maliciously following through an initially clean block. Dunlap drove his massive forearm into an already off balance KJ Wright's neck/facemask area to completely obliterate out of action. Even though it was not necessarily after just impending Wright's momentum was enough to take him out of the play.

Watch the play, Dunlap at full strength continues to finish his iniatally clean block to the shoulder by maliciously driving his forearm into Wright's neck, at that point you can actually see Wright go from unbalanced falling to his legs quivering, knees buckling and just dropping.

Yet Dunlap is a hero and you call Frank Clark's contact with Rivers a dirty play?

A play where Clark:
-was caught in a 8-10 player scrum
-trying to finish a play
-with his blocker pushing him into Rivers
- and trying to avoid completely body slamming Rivers full force while falling may or may not made incidental contact to River's Helmet while trying regain his balance
- and whether you think the contact was incidental or not, it wasnt seemingly malicious in any way. Just a little competitive love tap if anything in the spur of the moment mishap that had no egregious intent to seriously injure a player.

Yet to you, Clark is utter BS, an idiot, a dirty player, in the wrong. a ticking time bomb and Dunlap was just a dude making a great play.

Just seems like you are flip-flopping on your great know-it-all-powerful logic or you just really want to bed Rivers.

I don't understand the correlation you're making between the two.

The similarity is that you've got Seahawks fans that don't know any better swearing that the world is against them.

Dunlap hits Wright, hard, good. Extends after the play. Did he have to do it? I'm sure he didn't. But every single one of us that has posted in this thread would take that shot the same way. That's exactly how you're taught to do it. Punch with the forearms and unload through the guy. As a lineman, it doesn't get any better than getting a clean shot on a guy, in the neutral zone. You go for the big hit every time. His hand gets up around the neck area. Waaaaaaaaa. Again, I guarantee you KJ Wright thought not one thing dirty about the hit. I guarantee you nobody else in the country shown that tape would think anything dirty about that hit. Nobody that has ever played the game would think dirty of that hit.

Rivers has been sacked hundreds of times in his career, and never took this much exception to one. If Clark did nothing wrong, why did Rivers do it? In a preseason game no less. I guarantee you Clark did SOMETHING. It just doesn't pass the smell test. You don't have to believe me. You know I don't care. You know that 50 people against me here bothers me none. You also know that just about every time I go 50 to 1 in this place, I end up being proven right. You've been here long enough. I pick my battles. I'm not going to stick my neck out like this if I'm wrong.

Im not even arguing what Dunlap did was illegal or not, only that it was malicious and unneccesary.

Their are two definative results on that hit on Wright:

#1 Dunlap iniated a clean block, clearly knocking Wright off-balance. Dunlap in his second action followed through with a vicious forearm shiver across Wright's neck and facemask causing Wright's body to actually buckle in the process of falling down.

That is the text book block version but still what Dunlap did was unecessary and excessive and the correct way to follow through would have been through Wright knocking him back or across his body and let Wright's own momentum take him down. Not by establishing a great hand punch on the sternum only to attack an already beaten and now exposed Wright with a massive forearm shiver to the head/neck area that seemed very malicious in intent.

#2 the other way to see the play is Wright iniated contact, richocheted off, lost his balance, only for Dunlap to attack Wright's head and neck with a unecessary blow.

Its really hard to tell what happens in the gifs because of the angle but its either one of those options. One is a clean block and the other is illegal, either way both scenarios look malicious and intent to obliterate a player with unnecessary action.

And I only brought up Clark because what he may or may have done, there is no definative angle of what happened in a scrum of a lot of moving, bunched up parts working against each othet, but whatever Clark did wasnt seemingly egregious or malicious in intent yet you just threw him under the bus because you have an affinity for Rivers and a hatred for Clark.

I dont believe that you have seen every Chargers game, every Phillip Rivers sack, most games ive seen from him is that he's competively hot tempered and has a knack for baiting other players to doing something stupid. The guy is a trash-talker.

All this could easily been nothing at all and a huge misunderstanding:

Rivers probably thought Clark was purposely being excessive because he was already caught by Hill. Yet, by the time Clark could even realize Hill had Rivers, Clark was already in River's face wrapping him up smartly to prevent any attempt of a desperation pass, all while Rivers was falling back from Hill's hold on his legs and Clark's momentum barrelling down from the top aided by the beaten Charger's center that pushed Clark more into Rivers then at the last minute tried to restrain Clark from falling which probably made Clark hold awkwardly on to Rivers as they both were falling and things got rough on impact.

The play could have been no ones fault just an imperfect situation and overreaction yet you want to sit there high and mighty and paint Rivers as the victim and Clark as the instigator when video evidence proves otherwise than it really being a very jumbled up football play.

Then you want to sit here and argue for a more flagrant, more egregious, seemingly malicious intent by Dunlap to take Wright's head off whether it was a clean hit or not, which is still unclear but still wholly visible more so definative than what happened to Clark and Rivers and you want to call Dunlap's forearm shiver to an opponents neck and head... a great football play.

You dont see the irony there, at all?

 

[athanas]

I don't know how anyone can see it differently so I did a closeup shot and made it alot bigger, and even slow motion it, every frame you can see that his arm was never in the sternum area. If it was, then how did half of Dulap's arm is way past KJ's neck? That arm extending like that meant that he did an elbow backhand.

You've obviously never blocked someone in space before.

Indeed I did. And 15+ years ago they taught me using forearms to block was a dying method and to use your hands in front of your body for better control on your opponent was the way to go.
Oh, and, you know, all the new rules cracking down on hits/hands to the head/face.

 

[c_hawkbob]

I've blocked people in space before and I've been called for a forearm shiver to the neck before. And I played when head slaps were legal.

 

[Tech Worlds]

Dunno... the block looked ok to me.

 

[kearly]

I hate the crackback rule sometimes. I've always felt that so long as you came at the guy from the general direction he was facing (180 degrees), that a good block should be legal. Even high school football players are taught to keep their head on a swivel when in pursuit, and I'm guessing that NFL players probably do it most of the time too. But every now and then a player forgets to keep an eye out and these hits happen.

Dunlap is a big dude and I don't think he was trying to be dirty. But he ends up putting his shoulder and arm right into Wright's head which IS an illegal hit. If he had been a bit cleaner about it, I would have loved it as a great football play.

 

[chris98251]

New rules and contact to the head and facemask considered a foul, incidental contact within the box I think is still fine, that was a forearm to the neck actually looking at it more closely. not sure if they consider the neck and head one protected area but that comes close to being a clothesline which is also illegal.

 

[seahawks08]

In all seriousness, watch the play again. It is about for posts up from here. Describe what you would rather see Dunlap do.

I would have preferred Dunlap fall on his knees and let KJ pass through In all seriousness this is what I see. Dunlap takes his arms/shoulder to the neck helmet area of KJ Wright, anytime you see a player's head wobble like that, it is almost always called a penalty. Here is the quote from the NFL rule book, note the definition of the word "Frame"

ARTICLE 2. LEGAL BLOCK BY OFFENSIVE PLAYER
An offensive player is permitted to block an opponent by contacting him with his head, shoulders, hands, and/or outer surface of the forearm, or with any other part of his body that is not prohibited by another rule.

A blocker may use his arms, or open or closed hands, to contact an opponent on or outside the opponent’s frame (the body of an opponent below the neck that is presented to the blocker), provided that he does not materially restrict him. The blocker immediately must work to bring his hands inside the opponent’s frame, and as the play develops, the blocker is permitted to work for and maintain his position against an opponent, provided that he does not illegally clip or illegally push from behind.

NFL rule book quoted http://operations.nfl.com/the-rules/2015-nfl-rulebook/#penalty-summary

So in my opinion, that is a penalty, no question about it.

 

[jammerhawk]

I think it was a block to the neck, and illegal but it looks worse at speed than it does in slo-mo.

The referee watching the play made a judgment call and no foul was called. I'm OK with it.

 

[hawknation2015]

I think it was a block to the neck, and illegal but it looks worse at speed than it does in slo-mo.

The referee watching the play made a judgment call and no foul was called. I'm OK with it.

Referees rarely protect defensive players from hits to the head and neck area.

 

[jammerhawk]

Not so with those Prima Donna QBs.

 

[RichNhansom]

Well there was no foul for Tates hit on Lee the Cowboy LB and that was very questionable considering Tate initiates the hit directly on the Lee's numbers and the contact was only because the LB's head dropped down and his face mask hit Tates helmet. There was still a $25K IIRC fine. Tate was also on offense and blocking a much larger player.

Penalty or not a fine seems appropriate to me.