Back in the day this hit would be no big deal, except that it had no bearing on the play and probably would have been a late hit penalty and not a suspension.
But in today’s football world with the focus on safety and eliminating head injuries you get the flag for what he did and this was a good call. The hitter showed he had no class.
The latest and the greatest is from the New York Giants vs. the Carolina Panthers game.
It’s the third quarter and the Giants are getting killed by the Panthers 35-7 with 3:12 to go in the quarter. The play is a run play and Giants receiver Odell Beckham comes off the line and as he does Carolina cornerback Josh Norman slaps his helmet with his hand. Beckham then finishes the play and tries to take out Norman. He comes back and gets even with Norman by lowering his head and spearing the back of Norman’s helmet with his own as Norman was trying to tackle the Giants running back. Norman was defenseless and didn’t see the play coming.
It was a cheap shot. There was no doubt about it.
The problem I have with it is our nation’s youth emulate these players.
I grew up emulating some of the great running backs and quarterbacks of my time from Fran Tarkenton to Roger Staubach.
Those guys were class acts. What has happened with today’s players?
Well, don’t get me wrong, our day had our set of bad boys from Lyle Alzado to Ronnie Lott. But even those guys had class. Today’s players just don’t seem to have the class.
Beckham got a well-deserved suspension from this play and I hope he realizes that the nation’s youth are watching everything he does.
It was reported that Beckham was jawing, pushing and shoving much of the game and then Beckham took it even a step further by lowering his head.
Beckham said one of the reasons he did it was because of baseball bats he saw the Panthers carrying. What? What bearing does that have on the play? Who knows. He says he was afraid of the bats. That is absurd.
This is from a reporter on the bat thing.
“In pregame warmups, at least one Panthers official, and possibly more, carried black baseball bats onto the field and were motioning with them towards Odell Beckham Jr. while making comments to him, per a league source. Norman later grabbed the black bat and was swinging it in pregame warmups – which, by the way, an NFL Films camera captured. Beckham, according to another source, felt threatened and it helped put him in a certain frame of mind. It does not excuse what he did during the course of the game, but it does explain what led up to the battle that still is the talk of the league today.”
I did see the bats in film and thought nothing of them.
And in a tweet after the game, the Carolina cornerback tweeted this:
Bené Benwikere
’@BigPlayBene
“Coaches and players in every sport use objects as symbols of motivation the bat is a symbol.”
11:53 AM – 21 Dec 2015
The suspension for Sunday night’s game against the Vikings will be without pay, and Beckham has the right to appeal, but really he has no case in my book.
He got what he deserved.
-Contact sports editor Vern Hee at vhee@pvtimes.com