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Teaching Moment: Reed Blankenship Should Have Stopped on a Dime, Wrapped Up Jake Ferguson, and Gently Laid Him on the Ground
Published:
Welcome back to the worst sequence in football:
Indeed – WHAT IS BLANKENSHIP SUPPOSED TO DO HERE? Add that to the list of cliche fan reactions, though justified.
The situation:
You’ve got a bang-bang play. Jake Ferguson is bobbling a pass in the end zone. Blankenship comes in with the presumed intent of jarring the ball loose and/or knocking it away. Ferguson is falling to the ground and Blankenship catches the ball and then the head with his forearm and thigh, but he’s not exactly leaving his feet and launching himself head-first into the other guy.
It’s so hard to pull out of these collisions, almost impossible, really, and the receiver is almost always getting the benefit of the doubt as “defenseless” and earning a flag.
There’s gotta be a better way to officiate this, right? Nobody is asking for the legalization of head-hunting, we just want the defensive players to get a little leeway when it’s pretty obvious they’re not trying to kill the guy.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com