I was concerned and relieved when Chase would drill their QB after he released the ball. In the past, it seems that we have seen some flags on those hits. TheirQB is probably quite sore today
Overall – a VERY clean game 1 from a penalty perspective. Great to see.
I think it does subjectively. Hansen is also really good at leading with the shoulder and because of that he can give a good pop and doesn’t have to dramatically ride the quarterback to the ground. If he didn’t hit so hard, he’d probably get called for pulling down the QB. Overall, the penalty is even more obscure than targeting.
Definitely surprised flags weren’t thrown on those. Not that I think they should have been because they were good, clean hits but it seems like those kinds of hits on the QB always draw flags these days.
I was terrified when I saw those 2 hits also. Chase did use his shoulder, but I have memories of refs calling a penalty for “launching” like that, not sure if that is no longer a thing because the gray area on this stuff is tweaked every year.
In a lot of the tighter officiated PAC12 games we’ve seen, some of those hits could easily have been called, but the officials had a light hand last night as both teams had small penalty counts.
But Chase had a great game last night and was a monster.