The NFL’s pre-season flag-fest proves that Seattle cheated its way to a title
“The rules that are now being so aggressively enforced are not new. The league has simply realized that Seattle was not held to them in 2013.”
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“Points of emphasis”. That’s how the NFL Competition Committee refers to the sudden proliferation of enforcement of defensive holding and illegal contact rules that have caused the 2014 pre-season to become a flag-fest. Never before have we seen so many penalties called in NFL games. Officials have blown their whistles so often that the league could be mistaken for the NBA.
What prompted these “points of emphasis”? The Super Bowl.
Like most football fans, the NFL was looking forward to a competitive championship game between the Denver Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks. The former entered the big game boasting the most prolific offense in the history of the game; the latter the most dynamic defense of the 2013 season. It was expected that this mix would lead to football fireworks but instead the Seahawks simply had their way with deflated Denver. We now know that Seattle was cheating.
The way in which the NFL has turned up the heat on defenses that grab, hold and restrict offensive movement speaks to the disappointment that was Super Bowl 48. The game was entertaining only to the most masochistic Seattle fans. To the rest of America it was a giant bore. To the NFL dull is never good so, in order to insure that the next big game offers fans more to chew on, the powers that be want to insure that Seattle, or whichever team represents the NFC in the Super Bowl, allows the other team to play.
The rules that are now being so aggressively enforced are not new. The league has simply realized that Seattle was not held to them in 2013. So, if you’re a fan that has not enjoyed seeing NFL fields covered in laundry this pre-season, blame the Seahawks. They and their ill-gotten Lombardi trophy are the reason.
Perhaps these “points of emphasis” will allow Peyton Manning and the Broncos to plat their style of football when they make it back to the big game in 2014. It’s incumbent of Denver’s new-look secondary, however, not to generate penalties of their own. How bitter would it be for the Broncos to fall victim to the very rules that are being emphasized to protect them?
The Seahawks cheated their way to a title in 2013. It looks as though the NFL wants them to have to earn it this season.
