NFL rivalries had a strange week of empathy that led to Steelers president Art Rooney II defending the Ravens ineligible receiver gripe.
There are some heated rivalries in the NFL, few more heated than the ones in the NFC and AFC North. So you wouldn’t expect one team to defend another team in the division over anything. Then the Bears came out with a proposal that would allow each team to possess the ball in overtime, essentially addressing the way the Packers lost the title game in overtime last season.
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However heated that rivalry, it’s hard to beat the Steelers/Ravens rivalry, and yet Pittsburgh president Art Rooney II went on the record to say that the Ravens had a point with their ineligible receiver gripe, by which they lost a playoff game as well.
"“I didn’t think it was handled the right way when they ran the play,” Rooney told the team’s official website. “We have these rules where a player has to report [to the referee]. The referee is supposed to make sure the defense is notified on who reports. I thought Baltimore had a legitimate gripe about how that was handled.” (via Pro Football Talk)"
He’s referring to the playoff game vs the Patriots where New England “creatively” used both eligible and ineligible receivers, then combined it with a no-huddle, which kept the refs from properly notifying the Ravens. It led to confusion for Baltimore and a big play for the Patriots.
In response to this, the Competition Committee is proposing to change the rules for ineligible receivers, saying that they need to line up in the tackle box, instead of wide as the Patriots’ ineligible was doing.
Rooney added that maybe this isn’t the way to address it and that the defense should simply be given fair and clear notice of what’s going on. Then he said that maybe it was best to just eliminate it completely.
As Mike Florio of PFT points out, the ineligible rule was formed to allow teams to reconfigure in the event of injuries to a specific position group. If teams are going to start using it as a ploy, rather than as a necessity, then the league needs to react to make sure the other team knows what’s going on.
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