Late in the third quarter, Raiders safety Johnathan Abram made what looked to be a fantastic tackle on a screen attempt. Abram fought his way through the block of an offensive lineman to make the stop, but a flag was thrown on the play and the officials called for an “Illegal block below the waste.”
The tackle would have been for no gain and put Washington in second and 20 from their own 25. Instead it was a first and ten from the 40. Second and 20 would have put them in a hole they may not have dug out of. Instead they drove for a touchdown and a 14-6 lead.
Take a look at the play and tell me where first contact is made between Abram and the Olineman.
Not a low block. pic.twitter.com/a7vaIKHCdw
— Levi Damien (@LeviDamien) December 7, 2021
The replay clearly shows Abram’s contact with the offensive lineman was to his chest area with his shoulders. Not only that, but Abram was not “blocking” at all, but going for the ball carrier while attempting to shield off the blocker.
Raiders interim head coach Rich Bisaccia would like this one looked at by the league.
“The letter of the law on that one is you can’t cut an offensive lineman, but John, in our opinion, was trying to knife down the runner and here comes the Olineman and it ended up being a collision course for those guys,” Bisaccia said. “I do think, and we talked about that this morning, that is a good one to send in. It can maybe make them look at the rule a little bit maybe in a different way because of the bang-bang situation with John really trying to go for the runner and the offensive lineman happened to be in that situation at that time. Those are two interesting calls, but the one on John hopefully will be one they’ll look at and maybe change the rule a bit or at least give them something to think about.”
In other words, this ‘Low Block’ penalty was neither *low* nor a *block*. It was a crucial play in the game, so the league needs to get these things right.