Towards the end of the Sunday night Chargers/Broncos game, the Broncos set up to spike the ball, and they did. For some reason, though, Broncos center Tom Nalen took a dive at Igor Olshansky’s knees. On a spike play. As you can see below.

Olshanky then clubbed him with his giant Russian forearm, and was flagged for 15 yards and ejected from the game. The flag and the ejection were perfectly justified, of course… I wouldn’t argue against them. What Nalen did was technically legal… it was a play from scrimmage, he does technically have the right to block a guy, and the cut block is a legal maneuver.

The word “justified,” though, doesn’t really apply to Olshansky. The right thing to do, as difficult and against your instincts as it may be… is to not punch the guy. For the sake of your team, you’ve just gotta suck that one up and take it. If you want to find Tom Nalen in the parking lot after the game, though, I’d say that beating him to death with a tire iron would be perfectly justified. If Tom Nalen wants to take a shot at ending a guy’s season and/or career on a spike play, then I don’t think it would be completely out of line for someone to ram a knife into Tom Nalen’s stomach, park their car on his face, and play “Our Country” on that car’s stereo system until he bleeds to death.

Alright, that might be a bit much. But I do believe that the NFL should do something about cut-blocking in general. I’d argue that a cut like the one Nalen attempted there is easily as dangerous, and probably more so, than what Albert Haynesworth did to Andre Gurode. But the league’s more concerned with protecting their image than protecting their players, so Haynesworth sits for five games, and nothing at all will happen to Nalen.

It’s not just Nalen, of course, and it’s not just the Broncos… a lot of teams do this. Donovan Darius was cut last night about 30 yards away from the play, and was carted off with what looked like a pretty serious ankle injury. It’s such a dangerous thing to do, and honestly, I don’t know how any offensive lineman that routinely does it, or any coach that teaches and demands that his players use it, can sleep at night.

With all the rules they have for protecting quarterbacks, they won’t make one to protect the extremely vulnerable knees of defensive linemen and linebackers. That common denominator there is that the league likes offense… and they will never do anything about cut blocking.

UPDATE: The NFL fined Tom Nalen $25,000 and Igor Olshansky $5,000. I guess I’m eating my words a little bit there. I really didn’t think it would go down like that. Well done, NFL.

I’m OK with a five-game suspension for Albert Haynesworth, but that’s about the minimum I’d have been happy with. It is an NFL record suspension for on-field behavior, so I suppose that’s substantial enough. I’d have been happier with 10 games, and I thought the right call was to sit him for the rest of the year. What he did, obviously, was pretty sick and twisted, and he’s got to pay for that.

If you missed any of his heartfelt apologies, here’s a sample:

“What I did out there was disgusting,” Haynesworth said Sunday. “It doesn’t matter what the league does to me. The way I feel right now, you just can’t describe it.”

Well, that’s good. Your contrition is noted and appreciated, but for the purposes of your punishment, it’s also pretty useless. But I think you already know that.

And one thing I also want to note is that while his act was brutal and vicious and unacceptable… things like this do happen. They’re not usually that blatant, they’re not usually that visible to the camera… but you don’t think NFL players do things to intentionally hurt other NFL players from time to time? Under a pile for a loose ball, all kinds of wild shit goes on. Balls are grabbed. People are bitten. People are punched, kicked, etc. I remember an incident in a college game where one player blatantly choked another player after a play. What happened was nuts, but not unprecedented, in my opinion.

And taking it another step further, just to throw it out there for discussion… is it better or worse for Albert Haynesworth to stomp his spikes into someone’s grill, as opposed to a Broncos offensive lineman diving with his helmet or shoulder pad into the side of a defensive lineman’s knee? Is it better or worse than Warren Sapp hospitalizing Chad Clifton, 30 yards away from the ball, with absolutely zero chance to make any impact on a play?

And I know that it’s apples and oranges, and that those two things are technically legal. If if I have my knee caved in by a lineman on a pussy cut block, or if I have my hip shattered by an idiot defensive lineman… what it actually says in the NFL rule book is of little consequence to me. Legal or not, those players did things that were 1) completely unnecessary, and 2) likely to result in serious injury to fellow players (far more serious than 30 stitches to the forehead, by the way), and they damn well knew it.

Douchebaggery just seems to follow Bill Romanowski around. He was the NFL’s dirtiest player for years, and now, as the coach of a youth football team in California, he’s involved in a controversy concerning the dirty play of a 12-year-old, and his reaction to it. It may cost him his position as coach.

And the first thing that I’m wondering is … who the fuck let Bill Romanowski coach a youth football team? Who was coaching the other team, Rae Carruth? Todd Marinovich’s dad?

I’m all for second chances for everyone, but I’m sorry, when you build a career out of exhibiting a complete lack of class and sportsmanship on the football field, you do not get to be the guy entrusted to teach those things to kids.

But I digress… that isn’t the issue on the table. He is a head coach, we’ll just have to deal with it… and here’s what happened: Romanowski’s team was playing against another team that included a particularly rambunctious little bastard. Romo’s kids kept coming back to the sideline with scratches on their neck, cuts and bruises… the player even spit in JJ Stokes’ face. Romanowski confronted the other coach, and told him what his player was doing, and asked the coach to try to keep the game clean.

Then later, the same kid leg whipped another of Romo’s kids, and Romanowski, being an expert on recognizing dirty play, went out onto the field to check on his player. In the process, he also told the junior Romanowski out there, “Buddy, I warned your coach at halftime this kind of stuff doesn’t belong out here. You hurt my kid.”

This is the first time I’ve ever said this, and it will likely be the last, but … I don’t think Romanowski didn’t anything wrong here. I wouldn’t even describe it as inappropriate. In fact, I feel like it would’ve been irresponsible fo him not to say something to the kid.

If it scared the hell out of the boy, good. He was playing dirty, and it’s the responsibility of coaches and adults to put a stop to it. If the other coach won’t do it, then someone has to… even if that someone is Bill fucking Romanowski. The kid is 12 years old, not 5, and if he’s old enough to try to intentionally hurt other players, he’s old enough to have a steroid abuser scare the hell out of him.

Some parents and some administrators, though, had a problem with Romo’s running onto the field and confronting the player. The athletic director at the middle school says that Romanowski will be barred from the field when the two teams play again.

I’d argue that if anyone‘s going to be barred, it should be the coach who’s letting his player do this. He was aware of it, Romanowski told him politely about it once, and the kid kept doing it. That’s on the coach. If he can’t control his own player, either by lecturing him or benching him, then he is the irresponsible coach. And if you’re coaching in a league that includes Bill Romanowski, and you earn the title of the most irresponsible coach in the league, then you’ve got some serious problems.