Pape":1a5ho7yq said:
Maulbert":1a5ho7yq said:
Worst thing ever? Hardly. Worth 2 games? Absolutely. Albert Haynesworth got 5 for stomping on Andre Gurode's head about ten years ago. No denying that was worse, but Gronk piledrived a defenseless player half his size in the back of the head, giving him a concussion. I say it's worth half what Haynesworth got.
more like a flying elbow than a piledriver. and the dude is fine, he already cleared protocols. he wont miss a game.
Severity of the injury doesn't matter as much as the intent and execution of Gronk's actions. If he misses a few inches lower, he could have broken White's neck. If you go to kick a player in the face and whiff, it's not going to be hand-waved away just because you didn't connect.
The fact is the NFL doesn't want its players off the field any longer than they can help it, because it's lost revenue (insert world's smallest violin for the poor billionaires who aren't squeezing out every penny of profit). They have no balls to actually punish players for their actions and instead keep giving them little taps on the wrist. Gronk is loaded with endorsement money like Lynch was, so a game check is merely pocket change. He'll never spend a cent of his contract money until long after he's retired.
I'm not really a fan of the 'repeat offender' system, either. All of that stuff usually deals with helmet hits between the whistle. This was a dead ball, pre-meditated assault and battery by a 28 year-old manchild with anger control issues. There wasn't even and DPI to be mad about, players are allowed to grab all they want so long as they aren't holding down the receiver's arms or altering their route. Yes, the jersey stretched a little and the refs could call that if they wanted to, but it didn't affect the play in any way since the ball was so underthrown (or he overran it) that Gronk never had a chance at it. There may even have been a flag thrown by another ref not in his vicinity, but he didn't know or care. Exactly 2 seconds after he is done tumbling, he's already gotten up, looked straight at White, shuffled his feet several times to line up his shot and then drop a disgusting blow on a completely prone and unsuspecting player. Even if he did get the DPI, it would have been immediately erased with that dumbassery.
It was a disgrace to the sport and he got off way too easy.