The defensive platform of the Teir Tart loads slapped the tight chiefs Travis Kelce in the helmet during the Los Angeles victory against Kansas City in Brazil on Friday evening.
It was not a light tap. It was not subtle. At the end of a room in which the two were engaged, Tart gave Kelce a full -fledged Square Square in the masking.
The authorities saw the slap and quickly launched a flag for unnecessary roughness. The penalty was imposed half of the distance to the line of 20 yards of Los Angeles, and the chiefs marked a touch on the following game.
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Tart was allowed to continue to play, which aroused questions if the officials should have ejecting him from the game. The heads coach Andy Reid wondered the same.
Reid: “I don’t understand”
On Monday, the heads coach told journalists that he “did not understand” how the pie had escaped ejection.
“I do not understand this rule,” said Reid, by nfl.com. “I suppose it is the open hand, the fist, whatever, I do not know. I do not know what their decision was on this subject. But it was definitely touched in the head, whether it is a first open or a closed fist.”
When asked, Reid said he intended to raise the problem with the League.
“I’m going to settle this with the League,” he continued. “I can’t get into all of this.”
What the NFL rules book indicates
So why was the pie not been ejected? You can surely just pull and hit a guy in the head and be allowed to continue playing.
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In fact, there is a room for maneuver in the NFL rules book. Managers have apparently chosen to apply it in Friday’s decision not to eject Tart from the game.
[Get more Chiefs news: KC team feed]
Depending on the rules book, under the section of “automatic disqualification”, players are in fact allowed to throw punches in two different cases in a game before an automatic ejection applies.
From The NFL rules book::
A player will be automatically disqualified if this player is penalized twice in the same game For having committed one of the anti-portive driving faults listed below, or a combination of the faults listed below:
1. Throwing a punch, or a forearm, or kicks on an opponent, even if no contact is established.
The section includes an addendum allowing discretion for officials to eject a player for the first antisportive driving body if it is deemed “flagrant:”
Nothing in this section replaces the discretion of the official of the game to judge a fault to be blatant and disqualify the player according to a single event.
The authorities apparently did not consider the slap of Tart as obvious.
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A separate section under the “Player Conduct” section of the Rulebook addresses the players “hitting an opponent with his fists” and calls for an automatic penalty of 15 yards but does not require ejection. This section also provides officials, namely whether or not they should eject a player according to whether he considers a flagrant fault.
Penalty: loss of 15 meters. If one of the faults is judged by the flagrant official (s), the offender can be disqualified as long as the whole action is observed by the official (s).
NFL fans, of course, have seen many cases in which a player is ejected for the first time. A full blow to the head generally justifies such a penalty. Did the authorities shed light on Tart because he used an open hand?
Nowhere in the rules book, he does not directly deal with a “slap”, that’s what it was. Perhaps the rules of rule did not provide for adult men to slap on the face on a field.
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But for all the intentions, it was a blow with force for the head – the fist closed or not – and the managers chose to allow Tart to continue playing.
