‘There is the mindset to try and inflict pain’

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This article was published 16/07/2011 (5559 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WHEN does aggressive defence cross the line into roughing the passer? And when does roughing the passer become intent to injure?

Those were the questions for CFL director of officiating Tom Higgins on Friday, one day after Winnipeg Blue Bombers quarterback Buck Pierce was knocked out of the game by one of two late hits and some Bombers players suggested the Calgary Stampeders were deliberately trying to knock Pierce out of the game.

“When can you hit the quarteback? When he has the football,” Higgins said. “But when he has the football, he’s still protected. You can’t hit him in the head and if he’s standing to throw the football, you can’t hit him at or below the knees.

“When the ball is thrown,” Higgins continued, “the general rule is if (the defender) could have avoided contact with the quarterback, we should have a flag down.”

Calgary was flagged twice for roughing the passer on late hits Thursday night and offensive lineman Glenn January said after the game the Stampeders’ pattern of conduct suggested to him a malicious intent.

So where is that line? It’s a bit blurry as Higgins describes it.

“The mentality (among defences) is your success is based on putting pressure on the quarterback. And in there is the mindset to try and inflict pain. But by pain is meant a good, legal, hard hit. It’s not meant to ever take a player out of the game.

“I’d be so disappointed to ever hear something about someone deliberately trying to take someone out. But having said all that, it has happened before and we can’t stick our heads in the sand in the CFL and say we’re above all that.”

Higgins said motives can be difficult to prove in individual incidents, which is why the league tracks the bigger picture and looks for patterns of conduct over the course of a season that perhaps do betray an underlying malice.

“What I can tell you is we chart the whole year — we chart the teams and we chart the players.”

— Wiecek