Quote:
Originally Posted by The Goat
This.
And I'll add my own  . I think the refs and even the league are treading on the fine line of discrimination/racism wrt Vick. He's listed as a quarterback period end of sentence and when he's behind the LOS extending a play w/ his feet there's no legitimate excuse for the helmet to helmet and/or late hits he takes. In short, every other marquee (err white) QB in the league gets the benefit of the doubt everytime in those instances. F*ck you barely lay a finger on Tom B's pretty head or dare to tap him after a play and there's a shower of yellow flags coming in for minutes. Same goes for several others.
I understand there's room for debate about what type of guy Vick is i.e. character issues but it's really, really disingenuous to pretend it's ok the guy is treated differently as a player.
Off soap-box...and ps I'm white. |
The roughing calls that Vick gets or doesn't get are pretty in line with what a non-elite quarterback in this league gets the benefit of. He's not getting calls that Brady or Rivers may get, but you might think back to the Rodgers pick he threw in OT at FedEx last year to Landry, where Jarmon (incidentally) went helmet to helmet with him. Today, Rodgers absolutely gets that call. But because at the time he hadn't earned the benefit of the doubt, and it looked incidental enough, so no flag was thrown.
Campbell went the entire 2009 season without drawing a roughing flag, despite the fact we couldn't block anybody. But McNabb drew a roughing flag against the Cowboys on opening night 2010.
This is a penalty that gets flagged really inconsistently, and Vick seems to be on the wrong side of that more often than not. But it's a league-wide problem.
This does seem like a case of sour grapes, but I'll say this: Brady is far more whiny about it than Vick is. If there's any element of race here, it's not in how the penalties are administered, its in the public reaction to it: Brady is doing it because he's a competitor, Vick is doing it because he's soft.