[News] Terrell Suggs Dismisses Criticism Of Sam Bradford Hit

[BR News]

The Eagles say Suggs intentionally went after their starting quarterback. Penalties plagued the Ravens overall.

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[ravgo52]

I don't normal complain about penalties, they happen. But that looked like they were targeting us. Nitpicking us to to death! But, I like how Will Hill put it. We'll just have to make adjustments. Suggs was right in his read of the play and I know he wasn't trying to cheap shot anybody! But, I can understand their concerns for Bradford also. But don't throw Suggs into the intentional cheap shot artist either!! All in all, I believe this will make us stronger!!

Keep Up the Hard Work!! It Always Pays in the End!! Let's Go Ravens, Let's Go!!

[FloridalovesRavens]

Just another reason to hate on Ravens. If they were afraid Bradford would get hit then they should not have let him play. Do not like Chip Kelly and the Eagles. Never have and never will. Media has hyped them up so much they should win every game. That up tempo crap will only get you so far and they will probably fall flat on their faces by mid season.

[Dorota]

Seemed to me Sizzle made the right call to go after the QB, but hey, the tackle was pretty knee height. Not saying anything as in that's intentional, only that it was controversial enough for a call to be made. On the other hand, I didn't like the call on Kendrick Lewis, that did not look like an intentional thing on the WR to me. Altogether though, I was not happy with Ravens drawing so many penalties. We can do better than that. Hell, we usually do better than that!

[Minionhunter]

After Suggs and Harbs yelling at them for the bad call I think the refs were like, you know I don't know if any crew has ever thrown a flag every third play, let's just go for it.

[RavensInNC]

Looks like he hit him waist height and wrapped up his legs with his arms, doesn't seem like that hard of a hit to me.

[The Mom Gene]

Bradford's entire career has been one big hit... He has absolutely no ability or awareness after the throw; or handoff. He's gonna be plastered all over the field if he doesn't get protection. I will be surprised if he makes it through this season as well.

[RRRRRavens]

I'll repeat my reply that I posted elsewhere since it seems more appropriate here.

 

The refs in the game were rookies learning how to do their job, as mentioned by the announcers. In a way it was a practice game for them too. When any new person starts officiating at any sort of situation the tendency is to see fouls everywhere. The more mature seasoned official makes far fewer calls. This is true in many fields. As an example any new medical student diagnoses himself with having half the known medical diseases by the time he graduates. Of course he has none of these. Same goes for beginning lawyers. They see a case in every possible instance. More seasoned lawyers realize that a true winnable case is far rarer than his greener colleague does.

 

I trust that the Ravens coaches will dismiss most of these so called 'penalties' when teaching the few learning points the game provided to the team since these will not be penalties when the season starts and you have real refs in the game. I don't fault the refs for making so many bad calls. They are just trying to learn their craft.

 

As to the Eagles' complaints about Sizzle's tackle, read the rules, guys.  It's plainly there.  When your QB runs the read option he becomes a runner by the rules and takes his body and career into his own hands. Just ask RG3.  A running QB's football life expectancy is less than a third of non-runners.

Edited August 23, 2015 by RRRRRavens

[RavensFootballFan]

I back up Harbaugh and Suggs on this one, hands down. That was a very bad call, roughing the passer penalty on a read option where the QB has the option to keep the ball and run is silly and nit picking. Watch the video carefully, Suggs was not aiming for his knees, in fact, he was aiming for waist at first, Bradford jumping backwards/sideways at the last split second made it looked like a low tackle by time Suggs touch him. Suggs made an obviously soft tackle, Bradford reminded me of #12 who exaggerated the whole thing. The referees are in politically correct frame of mind instead of letting the boys play football the way it is meant to be, sullying what once was. The QBs from the old days would have been shocked if the ref threw a flag on that one.

Edited August 23, 2015 by RavensFootballFan

[mettro79]

I wasn't aware that it's now the player's responsibility to keep track of the other team's injury history and to alter their playing approach accordingly to cause the least amount of damage possible. BS!!! Just like most the calls in that game.

[reed20fence]

Chalk this up to the intentional leaving of grey area matters into the rules, just enough for the refs to insert themselves into the game and outcomes. The way we know that the refs blew the Bradford call is because Tebow got hit the exact same way by Brennen Beyer and Lo and Behold - no flag. Why? Because when it happened to Tebow on a read option he had already pulled the ball back on several plays and ran it himself, so in the back-judge's mind he considered Tebow a viable option in the read option, where he didn't consider Bradford one.

It exposed the arbitrary nature of how pro refs view the QB position in Kelly's system.

[balfan23]

Chalk this up to the intentional leaving of grey area matters into the rules, just enough for the refs to insert themselves into the game and outcomes. The way we know that the refs blew the Bradford call is because Tebow got hit the exact same way by Brennen Beyer and Lo and Behold - no flag. Why? Because when it happened to Tebow on a read option he had already pulled the ball back on several plays and ran it himself, so in the back-judge's mind he considered Tebow a viable option in the read option, where he didn't consider Bradford one.

It exposed the arbitrary nature of how pro refs view the QB position in Kelly's system.

Or hopefully it exposed just how bad that crew was. If I see them in a regular season game, I may have to turn it off. 

 

But to your point, there is no doubt that the refs consider 2 key points in what their tolerance level is on hitting the QB: 1) Their level of stardom 2) their frailty. Neither of these things should matter, but they do. 

 

We all know Brady and Manning are the golden boys and get every close flag. A guy like Flacco get drilled and doesn't times don't get a flag (cause he can take the hit), but a guy like Bradford, who is coming off injury after injury gets the flag. 

[Nick04263]

Just another one of those "Brady Rules". What is happening to the game I love?

[Nick04263]

Bradford is made of glass and will be out for the season by game 5. His only hope if the QB bubble the refs are told to put around them.

[balfan23]

The refs need to understand, in the "read" option the QB is reading the defender and if the defender makes no move toward him, he'll pull it down and run. So the QB is effectively a rusher.

 

Exactly how is it possible then to call roughing "the passer"? There was no passer on that play. 

 

So, the rule is you can't tackle a runner below the waist, if the runner is a QB? Or only if the QB is oft injured and can't take a hit? The Eagles can stick their cheap shot talk in their ear. If you don't want your QB to get hit, then don't run him in the read option. Otherwise, get over it.

[GENE2407]

Who cares. If Bradford runs that all year he'll be on I.R. by week 6 and not from any of our hits.

[MTRavensFan]

"It's a clean hit by Terrell Suggs. He's absolutely 1000% right. It is a totally clean hit...What's mind-boggling is Chip Kelly had the read-option in with a QB who has a history of getting hurt. So if you do not want your QB to get hurt, do not call the read-option while he's in the game... He (Sizzle) did his assignment, it wasn't a dirty play."

 

Willie McGinest on TA tonight. And Heath Evans calling us a "well-coached football team."

Didn't see that one coming, but pretty cool after all.

[Ravens8383]

Hate to say it but if Suggs makes that hit on Big Ben nothing is said by anyone on the Steelers.

[MTRavensFan]

Hate to say it but if Suggs makes that hit on Big Ben nothing is said by anyone on the Steelers.

and you can bet they don't throw the flag.

[January J]

No way that should have been a penalty. Hopefully the referees watch a lot of tape too bc they made a lot of iffy calls. However that's no excuse.

[The Mom Gene]

Go into PFT....  The Iggle's fans are whining so bad.  They shouldn't have picked up a QB with a history like that in the first place.  If you're gonna run the Read-Option, then expect to have your QB hit A LOT.  That was the complaint about Kaepernick by Jim Harbaugh...  and the result was????  Nothing, because your QB can take off and become a "RB" at any time.  Look at every Read-Option QB in the league...  Mike Vick, RG!!!, Sam Bradford...  all of them have a history of injuries.