Targeting foul?

[Korean_Hap]

http://youtu.be/d6ltV8G-FQY

The added (one year behind) disqualification to targeting is causing quite a debate here in Sweden. What is your take on the situation in this film?

[mishatx]

I don't see initial contact to the head and neck area, or with the head; it looks like the defender moves his head to the side of the receiver and delivers the hit with his shoulder to the receivers upper back.

This is a great hit, if the ball hadn't been dead for a while.

[TXMike]

Any league that does not have NCAA or NFL quality instant replay should consider an exception to this rule that removes the mandatory disqualification . The NCAA has recognized the problems with this call by their added potential use of replay at halftime during non-instant replay games.  The language change in the rule that removed initiate contact and replace it with forcible contact also shows there were incorrect calls made last year based on the intent of the rule.  There is just too much room for error and making a mandatory disqualification is extremely unfair to the players in my humble opinion.

[fencewire]

I don't see initial contact to the head and neck area, or with the head; it looks like the defender moves his head to the side of the receiver and delivers the hit with his shoulder to the receivers upper back.

This is a great hit, if the ball hadn't been dead for a while.

This...

UNR, but not TGT.

[Andrew McCarthy]

The language change in the rule that removed initiate contact and replace it with forcible contact also shows there were incorrect calls made last year based on the intent of the rule.

Isn't the change in language the result of calls that were overturned by replay that should have been confirmed?

[TXMike]

Other way. The contact was not forcible but was flagged. This change makes clear it needs to be forcible not just that it was the initial contact

[Johnponz]

I disagree.  The change was precipitated to take out the argument whether the hit was the initial contact or not.  With this change the foul now does not have to be be the result of the initial contact but rather forcible contact whether it was the initial hit or not.  This opens up the definition of targeting rather than limiting it.

[Kalle]

This is close but I'd like this to be flagged as a late hit, not targeting. And TXMike, I fully agree with you, but the folks in the IFAF rules body don't - we have the exact same rule you had last season, and we have to somehow live with it.

[Andrew McCarthy]

I disagree.  The change was precipitated to take out the argument whether the hit was the initial contact or not.  With this change the foul now does not have to be be the result of the initial contact but rather forcible contact whether it was the initial hit or not.  This opens up the definition of targeting rather than limiting it.

This is the way I see it as well.  There were calls that were overturned because replay guys were nitpicking that the initial contact was (slightly) to the shoulder even though the head was clearly forcibly contacted.

[TXMike]

There were also calls not overturned that made the CFO videos with comment that the hit was NOT targeting.

[dvasques]

wouldn't call TGT on this play but yet to UNR

And here in Brasil we decided to exclude the auto-DQ part of the rule

We rarely have targeting in games here, and don't feel the need to have the DQ as a learning tool to our players

but if this changes, we'll change as well