During Thursday night's game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens, Steeler head coach Mike Tomlin committed a no-no. As a Baltimore player was running with the ball close to the sideline, Tomlin was clearly seen to be standing ever so slightly in the actual field of play.
As the Baltimore player with the ball got close to Tomlin, he could be seen to noticeably hesitate. Like them or not, head coaches, even from the other team, command a lot of respect from players. That single moment of hesitation allowed a Pittsburgh defender to close the gap and make a tackle. Things happen fast in the NFL.
Though no penalty was called on the play, the league itself is considering handing down some serious penalties on Tomlin and the Steelers for what happened on that particular play. And well they should. No pun intended, but this was out of bounds, and somebody somewhere needs to start drawing a few lines that thou shalt not cross, lest we drop the hammer on thy head.
Tomlin would later say he didn't think he interfered with the Baltimore runner. Indeed, as the runner approached him, Tomlin quickly jumped back. But you know what? That's not good enough. Not even close.
That's the problem, or at least one of them, with sports these days. There's no honor left anymore. Like bratty little kids, everybody is trying to see how far they can push the limits, before they get reeled in and punished.
Tomlin's just the latest example. Look around. In baseball, a baserunner can safely slide into a bag, but the 2nd baseman or shortstop will proudly hold up the ball to the ump as if the runner was out. Now we all obviously could see the runner was safe, and the fielder damn sure knew it too -- but yet they try to scam an official. Or it could be the other way around. If the runner was obviously out, he'll still jump up and protest to the ump. Likewise, he also knew he was out, like a kid getting caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar. Basically, they're just both trying to cheat -- and that's wrong.
Basketball players will flop on the floor in feigned agony over a foul that never even happened. Hockey players will take a dive trying to draw a penalty for much the same reasons. It's all attempts at cheating.
Again, like little kids, until someone lowers the boom on them, they'll keep, pushing, pushing, and pushing some more to see how much they can get away with. Left unchecked, such cheating becomes so commonplace, that it begins to be accepted as the norm. Witness how every basketball player routinely "palms" the ball while dribbling. "Travelling" calls have become almost non-existent, when it comes to star players in the NBA. The rule says a player is allowed a step and a half after he picks up his dribble. These days, we'll see guys taking, 3, 4, sometimes even 5 steps on the way to the basket. It's not even a close call, but no violation is whistled. Though it's become commonplace -- it doesn't make it right.
So if the rules of play mean anything in various sports -- they should be enforced. Let them get a little lax here, or overlooked there, and after a while nobody knows where the lines are anymore. It's also no big secret that star players with outrageous contracts seem to get away with a lot of shenanigans that a "regular" player would be taken to the woodshed for. That's not right either. They're both playing the same game, so both should be held to the same rules.
The only way this mockery is ever going to stop is if the powers-that-be, as in the commissioners and high lords of the various sports, want it to stop. Like a lot of other things in life, sometimes an offender has to made an example of (banged hard) to get the attention of others that might consider committing the same crime in the future.
So why not start with Mike Tomlin? He's a high-profile guy. If the league dropped the hammer on him in a large way, others would sit up and take notice. Uh-oh, better not do that.
And let's get real. Tomlin's a very smart guy and a heckuva head coach for the Steelers. Certainly he knows the rules when it comes to the markings and boundaries on any NFL field of play. That wide white stripe along both sidelines is there for a reason. Actual a few reasons. It's the border between the field of play and out-of-bounds. Because the white contrasts with the green of the field, it makes it easier for the refs (and the replay folks) to determine whether a player was in or out of bounds on any particular close play.
But it also means -- coaches and players on the sidelines shalt not cross this line while a play on the field is in progress.
There will be those that defend Tomlin. After all, he merely had the tip of his foot across the line, and quickly jumped back, they will say. But that's the problem. Give them an inch....
An analogy. When I worked for GM, there were machines called shears. These were used for cutting sheet metal. Slide in the metal to be cut, press the foot pedal, and the machine would cycle, quickly snipping the inserted metal. It was highly recommended to make sure one's fingers or hands were well clear of the "shear point". Once one hit the pedal, the machine didn't care what else might be in the way. Whatever it was, was going to get cut off. For various reasons, usually carelessness, these sort of accidents happened at times back in the day. The machine had a line. Whether it was just the tip of a finger or an entire hand, cross that line and set things in motion -- and it was unforgiving. Something very bad was going to happen very quickly. And all the king's men or "guys in the booth" couldn't overturn that call. It was done.
On the football field, we'll also routinely see coaches and players encroach upon the field while a "live" play is going on, but most times, unlike Tomlin's gaffe, this is well behind the play. Most likely think, what the heck, no harm, no foul, and who cares? Back to the shear. These machines were usually about 10 feet across. It cycled the same way whether it was a one inch strip of metal, or an eight foot sheet to be cut. More than a few accidents occurred when a worker at the far end wasn't paying attention to another worker inserting a small piece of metal at the other end. Press the foot petal, and if the former's fingers happened to be in the wrong place -- guess what?
Though I surely wouldn't recommend any sort of dismemberment as punishment, yours truly is of the opinion that the various sports need to make up their minds. They can either let the rules keep slip-sliding away, until nobody knows what they are anymore -- or they can be more like those shears. Here's the line. If you want to cross it, even with a fingertip, accidentally or not, you do so at your own peril.
Because if one day somebody pushes a Commissioner's foot pedal, and he decides to cycle his machinery as well, this could get painful in a hurry to the careless offender he decided to make an example of, in the interest of cleaning up his game.
It has to start somewhere. Might as well be Mike Tomlin.
He knew better.....
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