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"If we pull back now,Cheap Baltimore Ravens Jerseys, then we aren't being consistent, and I think that's important," he said.
Clearly, not everyone has figured out how to adjust.
Some flags are negating highlight-worthy action — 15 TDs have been wiped out already, up from 11 at this time a year ago, according to STATS — and might just be changing the nature of the way defense is played.
In the second quarter of the Seahawks' victory at the Redskins, Percy Harvin ran around left end for what appeared to be a 16-yard touchdown — until it wasn't, because of a holding penalty on a Seattle lineman.
Still, officials affect the way players do their jobs.
"I don't see a diminished product on the field," he said.
Illegal contact, defensive holding, defensive illegal use of hands, and offensive pass interference are all at Week 5 highs over the last 20 years, STATS said, and the jumps from 2013 are staggering, particularly for illegal contact (which has more than tripled, from 15 to 56) and defensive holding (more than doubled, from 52 to 113).
"We were very liberal in these areas and teams then started to play and coach to those standards, so they've been under-officiated," Blandino said. "And that was the reason the committee felt it was time to tighten it up."
And in the fourth quarter, Harvin collected what he thought was a 41-yard scoring pass — until it wasn't, because, as official Jeff Triplette informed a national television audience, a member of the Seahawks "hit a player on the ground unnecessarily."
"I'm certainly not surprised that fouls are up. ... We're in a good place," NFL Vice President of Officiating Dean Blandino said in a telephone interview Thursday.
Cardinals cornerback Antonio Cromartie, for one, insisted he hasn't spent a lot of time thinking about the increase in penalties, "because if you start paying attention to the calls, you're not going to play the way you want to play."
Get used to it. NFL games are averaging about 17 penalties, up more than two per game from the 14.7 to this point in 2013, according to the league, and the man in charge of officiating is OK with the trends, in part because games are actually running a few minutes shorter.
"I've never seen that in football," Seahawks defensive back Richard Sherman said about the trio of touchdowns taken away. "I've never seen that. Ever."
One example of the way defenses are failing to adapt came Sunday, when Falcons cornerback Robert Alford got called for four penalties, including two on one play,Wholesale Jerseys, in a loss to the Giants.
"You kind of had a dog that went to the bathroom in one place for 10 years,Wholesale NFL Jerseys China," Bengals defensive coordinator Paul Guenther said, "and now he has to go over here."
On the very next play, the do-everything Harvin caught a short pass near the line of scrimmage and motored down the sideline for what appeared to be a 26-yard TD — until it wasn't, because of a false-start call on Harvin.
Blandino's message: Don't expect things to go back to the way they were.
Three TDs, zero points, thanks to flags, which are being thrown about 15 percent more often in the NFL than they were last season through Week 5.
Some defensive players wonder aloud whether the NFL only wants to make things easier for quarterbacks and wideouts who already were able to gain yards and points seemingly at will. So far, QBs have been more successful than ever: The NFL-wide completion percentage of 63.7 and interception rate of 2.4 are both the best through five weeks since at least 1950, according to STATS.
Blandino, though, says those numbers simply reflect that offenses focus more on shorter passes.
There already have been more illegal contact calls than the 54 for all of last season.
As for what happened Monday night, when Seahawks safety Earl Thomas surmised that the 13 penalties on the Super Bowl champions was an attempt to keep things close against the last-place Redskins, Blandino called it a coincidence that three flags wiped out Harvin's scores.
"As long as there have been officials,Cheap Jerseys," Blandino said,NFL Jerseys Cheap, "there's players that complained about calls."
"We've got to make sure that Robert and all of our defensive players understand how the game is going to be called and what is defensive holding and what is illegal contact,NFL Jerseys Supply," Atlanta coach Mike Smith said. "Obviously, we haven't done a good enough job as a coaching staff."
"We're going to see how they're calling the game," Broncos cornerback Aqib Talib said. "If they're calling it tight, we'll back up a little bit."
Where things are especially out of whack is in the defensive-backfield rules that the competition committee decided to emphasize — and in the case of illegal contact, reword. |
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