Horse collar rule: Mountain out of molehill?

You know, I understand that in today's day and age that we have athletes that are just absolutely huge, fast, and strong. The chances for season-ending and career-ending injuries are higher than ever, despite improvements in protection, including rules.

The issue I have is--when is enough enough? When are we taking football and putting it so much into the referee's hands based on interpretation that we're losing the essence of the game? I thought about this when I was reading about Roy Williams being suspended for last night's game against the Panthers, because of excessive "horse collar" infractions, which involves a defensive player grabbing a player from the front or behind by the shoulder pads, literally think of a "horse collar". This is due to the neck injuries this could cause, but when I think about this penalty along with the penalty defensive players can get for hitting a QB on the helmet, I just wonder why these things are basically looked at as all being potentially "vicious"?

I mean, with the horse collar, I have seen several of these, and I really think that sometimes it is clearly an instinct, a natural move depending upon the positioning of the defensive player, not something where they are trying to pull this huge WWE like move to hurt the other guy. Just like with the QB-helmet rule. How many times have you seen it where maybe even someone is trying to block a pass or it happens just out of mere coincidence? Yet, all of these players are penalized for really something that they are not doing--yet the 5-yard bump rule continues to be ignored almost every game, players hold virtually all game---there's just no consistency here, folks.

Are we making a mountain out of a molehill?

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Horse collar rule: Mountain out of molehill?

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