Week 10 observations, 2023

[FredFan7]

49ers coach Kyle Shanahan gets his challenge flag out on a 3rd quarter Jaguars completion. The flag does not have to touch the ground to be recognized, only an official must observe the flag is being thrown prior to the snap. In this case, the flag was seen and the crew shut down the snap for the next play.


Although the 49ers cruised to victory in Duval County, the 49ers would have minded if this challenge came in late, because the call stood.

[FredFan7]

[FredFan7]

[bigorange1]

I guess Referees no longer have the power to eject - it must come from NY. Sad.

[zebrablog]

For something that's a live-ball game-action hit, there's only one shot to get it right. While a defenseless receiver hit can be judged this way (with a percentage of erroneous calls), an official can't rewind to see the elements that would make it a flagrant hit. And we would like to see a lower margin of error on ejections, obviously. Before, that was done by not ejecting a player.

I wrote about this in 2018 when the use of the helmet rule was introduced.

For the 2018 season, it is an ejection if:

• Player lowers his helmet to establish a linear body posture prior to initiating and making contact with the helmet
  
• Unobstructed path to his opponent [and]
• Contact clearly avoidable and player delivering the blow had other options

... Because of the complexity of factors (which have to be retroactively determined after the helmet hit), the officiating command center can make an ejection determination when a flag is thrown. There is no replay intervention if no foul is called, and this is separate from any other replay functions. During the season, if you see officials having an extended discussion, they are probably in contact with the command center through their wireless headsets to get an ejection decision.

www.footballzebras.com/2018/08/shamarko-thomas-ejected-on-helmet-hit-first-dq-of-live-ball-action-since-2009/

If we look at the other ejection of the weekend, we saw Ramon George yelling "you're gone" to a Dallas player kicking the opponent after the play. Very obvious ejection.

When we get into fights, there are limitations to equitably assess ejections. The officials on the field do enter their decisions first and the command center takes that into consideration. It helps to support officials that are already taxed in trying to cleave the combatants.

It is remarkable that there all these drumbeats for a s*y j***e, and then contempt when replay resources are used to help. (Sorry, that term from the spring leagues is a pejorative to me.)