@nepatriots said:

And just to double check ... Your tight end is Nancy Kerrigan in this scenario, right?

Zombo

Congratulations, TJ!

@nepatriots said:

It was legal period plain and simple. There is no question of morality to even consider. Football is a violent sport. It is played by aggressive high motor high testosterone MEN who know the risks involved. I am sick and tired of hearing all the whining crap about safety , concussions, bad hits, new rules etc. To me if you sign up to play the game and take the paycheck pay the price. If you watch the game understand that is what you are watching. Otherwise pick another sport. There are plenty.

Lastly I feel bad for Gronk. Great player who just happens to be one of the guys cursed by bad breaks (no pun intended). I wish him the best he'a always been fantasy gold for me when healthy lol

Zombo said:

LOL I almost puked I laughed so hard reading this

@miktoxic said:

Apparently not. Like I said whatever happened to Palmer....Davis....Crennell.....Mangini...Shurmur.....all had fine winning careers after leaving here, right? Guh.

@miktoxic said:

Of the 5 years he was here, 4 were losing seasons. Of course I guess you could say that if we had kept others as long as BB then they may have had more losing seasons, but they were all fired before they had a chance to match or pass BB. (you know like Palmer/Crennell/Mangini/Davis etc. etc.

guess everybody surpasses expectations once out of cleveland.

@miktoxic said:

c'mon. reallY?

now i know you're fuckin with me.

how many seasons exactly Z?

Four losing seasons. Name one with more.

Z

Zombo said:

c'mon. reallY?

now i know you're fuckin with me.

how many seasons exactly Z?

Z

for a total of how many games?

made vinny testaverde look like a hall of famer. brought in pepper and bavaro.

you got somethin to bitch about belichick? go piss on modell's grave.

will go down in history as one of the best coaches OF ALL TIME. first ballot hall of famer. did more than his mentor parcells. and who was belichick's wunderkind??????

that's right mangini. goes to show you how fuckin stoopid our owner's have been.

Zombo said:

wet blanket bellidick needs his ass kicked

Zombo said:

, based on courage, compassion, commitment and community

And completely destroying the fuck out of Gronk.

Zombo said:

To expound a little on Tour's excellent breakdown of what happened, Watching that .gif it's near certain Gronk saw TJ coming- and made the mistake of trying to run him over, and made no effort to protect himself.

Zombo said:

You can vote this fine citizen and trusty tackler to the Pro Bowl here

Zombo

TJ gets Belichick's "Death Stare" after mowing down their Super Bowl chances ...

Congratulations, TJ, not only a great player who stops big barreling tight ends right in their tracks ... but at terrific guy as well!

@nepatriots said:

No, you fucking moron ... the only way he could MAKE THE STOP without risking a fine was go for his LEG.

T.J. Ward's job was to stop the ball carrier, and by doing so, to avoid a penalty for this team or fine for himself.

He stopped him.

It was a marvelous, marvelous play. It was perfectly legal, moral ... it was the right thing to do.

Way to go T.J.!

El perfecto.

Zombo

@slowburn said:

who like donnie wahlberg? the best they had to offer. oh, wait! ben afflecck's brother 'cassie' from gone baby gone'. southies are about as tough as roseanne's puusy hair.

staten island? nice landfill.

@nepatriots said:

"Less dirty" yet still "is dirty". Waffle much? Please take off your homer glasses and watch your own damn gif, please.

As Z already pointed out Ward contacted Gronk above his knee. Actually caught the lower third of Gronk thigh pad by my eye. When Gronk's foot would not slide on the turf (understandable since he was striding onto the leg) the knee began to flex in a direction it was not meant to bend. As it did Ward's shoulder slides down and into the newly forming "depression" of the bending knee and the rest is history... an unfortunate, but perfectly clean history.

One point to consider that has not been raised is that Gronk failed to protect himself. He was not a defenseless receiver.

Watching the gif I noted it starts with Gronk making two, roughly 2-yd strides followed by a mild leap to make the catch producing a 3 yard stride. It's what follows that is curious. What follows is a two-yard stride and then a 3-yard one??? Why the over striding into the impact? I can only assume he misjudged Ward's speed. It seems clear that he did see Ward diving at his legs.

Anyway... the over-stride into the impact added to both his left shoe's grip on the turf and the locking of his knee at exactly the time neither should have occurred.

Contrast this to a similar 4Q play (at the 12:40 mark) when Gordon protected his knees by leaping into the impact of a Pats' DB (#26) that went low on him at the end of a shallow crossing route. Had Josh completed his stride his right knee would have taken a direct blow with foot planted, but instead he raised his right leg. He ended up being flipped, but jumped up to play on.

Maybe someone can gif that play and post it.

@the-gipper said:

And, as has been said, Cameron and other Browns receivers were tackled very similarly but were lucky that their leg was not planted....or the hit on them was an inch higher or lower thus avoiding direct contact on the knee. It was just a matter of dumb luck for him.

Or, maybe, since he seems to constantly be injured, he doesn't know how to control his body to protect it. Ever think about that?

NOTE: Did not read your underlined comment until after I'd completed my above musings. Sometimes it scares me how much we see things the same way, Gip...

And FYI... It should scare you, too...

@the-gipper said:

It is not a chop block. It is a tackle. The person who was knocked down had the ball. And he was out in open field.

Do you know what a chop block is?

>>>. A chop block only applies to the interior line when a defender is engaged with a blocker, and another blocker goes down to block him below the waste.

Beat me to it, Gip... again with the thought process...

The trailing defensive player, DQ, was not in contact with Gronk. Had he been then the analogy to a chop block would be reasonable, but he was not so it is not.

The proper name for what Ward did is "roll blocking". It's actually a bad tackling technique devoid of wrapping up the runner.

***************************************

NO. Ward himself said he'd been fined three times for upper hits.

so, the NFL mandates that the smaller db's have no choice but to hit low.

Or, they bounce off the hips of the big TE and he goes for a TD.

Meanwhile, the ex-VP of NFL refs says that PI call was WRONG. Do you see anything

morally wrong with that call now? Pitiful.

Zombo said:

Ok, so in your theory the only way to avoid a fine was to hurl himself into a mans knee that was running full speed in the opposite direction?

Do you see anything morally wrong at all with what you're defending here?

@nepatriots said:

Shut the fuck up. The hit was a part of football and you're just pissed because Gronk got hurt. Seriously, go fuck yourself, you New England band wagoner bitch.

The fact that you're still on this board talking about it is sad.