I openly admit I might be acting homerish, but it's a pretty lame definitioin of "hit the guy late" when all Breno did was knock down a guy hovering over his teammate, with the acceleration he'd already built up to that point (ie he didn't seek the guy out and purposely try to start something).
We'll DEFINITELY agree to disagree with what Coples did. If you want to say it's against the rules, fine. But that was the ONLY way he was getting Luck down from the angle he approached him (again, no intent to injure). He didn't grab the helmet or the horsecollar -- he just used his massive strength to get Luck down.
The LAST thing I want is my team letting up on plays because they're afraid the ref might call something. That will result is negatives WAY more harmful than 15 yard penalties, which is why I had no problem with either of those fouls, and hopefully Bowles didn't either . . .
coples i see your point on. it was the only way he could take down the QB. that said, it is a penalty and if it happened to the jets QB and no flag was thrown, people here would be furious. that's how i judge if it's a legitimate call.
breno's was stupid. it may have been a ticky-tac call, but it will get called. the play was over and he wasn't "defending" his teammate. he hit a guy late, and while the guy probably flopped to draw a penalty, it seemed to work. refs will call you on that and you need to be smarter.
they didn't hurt us this week, but those type of dumb penalties (not so much coples being "dumb") can cost you a game. glad the penalties overall are down. but they need to be smarter on some of these things

