[saden1]

Originally Posted by 70Chip

In regards to the relative cheapness of the shot on Campbell: After, the Steeler kind of stumbled, he has a choice. He can either attempt to regain his balance and probably not hit the quarterback at all or he can immediately dive at Campbell's knees. He chose the latter.

I think players are afraid to do the first thing because they will be criticized by their coaches for being soft. If they were to say, "But it's a pre-season game" the coaches would probably put that player in the "lacks killer instinct" file. Defensive coaches want players with hard hearts. Think about Greg Williams. Do you think he would want Andre Carter to pull up and avoid a low hit because he doesn't want to hurt someone in pre-season. No way. Williams would make them run wind sprints for doing that.

Btw, I just remembered that a similar thing happened to Brunell against the Giants in Deember 2005. Giant comes in stumbles and then blows up Brunell's legs. If they want to stop that from happening they need to treat those situations as though there was no stumble. The only excuse would be being blocked into the QB or tripping over someone and falling into him. Everything else should be treated as a straight up Raiders of the 70s cheap shot. (In the case of Brunell, I think Coughlin told them to go after his knees, but that's just me. I always thought THAT stumble was a little bit on the suspicious side. He seems like that sort of coach)

Have you ever seen Redskins players dive at the legs of opposing player?