And this is what I believe will happen. I believe we will be hearing something about this soon.
Unfortunately, in my experience, overturning this call will be difficult. They will have to make sure that this cannot be considered targeting in the most generalized and loosely applicable form of the definition. They don’t have the leeway to judge if this is targeting. Their mandate will be to overturn only if “under no circumstances does this play meet the targeting standards”. Hoping I am wrong.
Especially since the rule is applied so capriciously.
Listen, if you watch the video frame by frame, it is as clear as Day Lucas turns his head to the left to avoid making contact and leads with the shoulder, which is what makes first contact and secondly, it’s only the side of his helmet near his ear hole, which makes contact with the other players helmet. The crown of Lucas’s helmet never makes contact with the other players helmet. This will get reviewed and if there’s justice, we’ll get overturned.
I disagree. I think the hit in Mali was the kid looking upfield at the ball in the air. He then turned and ran into him while making the tackle. It was truly helmet on helmet though. Lucas meant to tackle the receiver, not spear him. The shoulder hit and head slip is the tell tale that it was incidental to the contact. He was diving too (parallel to the ground) to make the tackle to limit yardage, not create more contact through supposed “launch”. The call against Lucas is a very bad call imo, especially to uphold it. It neeeds to be reversed. I don’t think the hit on Mali was malicious or intentional either. One being reversed upon review should have meant that they both were.