Ed Reed laid out two Patriots receivers last night.
If I was running the NFL both hits would be considered clean, but since I don’t run the NFL per their rules about defenseless receivers and illegal contact, both hits should have been a penalty (one wasn’t, one was).
Reverend Ray Lewis like many others think the rules are bad, so he just plans to ignore them. Here is his quote courtesy of Pro Football Talk.
“He turned his head to the side and clearly hit him with his shoulder pad,” Lewis said. “Those things cannot affect the way this game is played. And then the saddest part about it is when you hear other people say, ‘Oh, those are the rules.’ For real? That’s not the rules. The rules of this game is, ‘Do whatever you gotta do, by any means necessary.’”
Ray is preaching and his point doesn’t make any sense, because he is saying three different things. First, he is justifying the hit as being within the rules, then he says he doesn’t like that the hit violates NFL rules and lastly he says there are no rules in football.
Like it or not the rules are if you hit a guy anywhere near the head they are supposed to throw the flag. Reed got the benefit of one call and not the other. Those are the breaks.