Officials will have a bulls eye on players who target

As the video rolled across a makeshift screen on the wall of the Ecole Classique cafeteria, high school football officials from the Greater New Orleans area watched a series of illegal hits delivered by defenders against defenseless players.

They were receiving a comprehensive course in “targeting” by the group’s assignment secretary, Kevin Boitmann.

A wide receiver leaps for a pass. As he catches the ball, a defender lunges head-first into him in an attempt to hurt the receiver.

Another player takes a forearm to the face.

“How do you judge intent?” Boitmann asked the group. “It’s those vicious hits whose only intent is to punish an opponent. It’s not a hit as part of trying to tackle someone or a hit that’s part of playing the ball. It’s a blow that goes beyond a normal tackle.”

Boitmann cautioned the officials to pay close attention to the action that precedes a tackle.

“The new definition of a defenseless player is one who, because of his physical position and focus of concentration, makes him vulnerable to injury.

“The classic ones are a passer who is in the act of throwing, or a receiver who is off the ground looking for the ball. These are the ones we want to protect,” he said.

“You heard the saying, ‘look for the guy with a brick in his hand.’ That’s what we need to do here. These are the ones who are winding up to make these kinds of hits. They’re coming from yards away to do this. We need to see the action that says a player didn’t mean to tackle; he meant to hurt.”

The officials want to see a classic tackle made by the defender moving his head to the side and using his shoulder and arms to bring down a player with the ball.

“The rules say a player can’t hit below the waist and they can’t hit above the shoulders,” Boitmann said. “Like baseball, this is a tackler’s strike zone.

“The classic giveaway is the head dip when a player coming to make a tackle dips his head so that the crown of the helmet delivers the blow.”

The players officials will watch closely are the passers, the receivers and the players away from the ball who are vulnerable to “cheap shots.”

“If we can catch the targeting of these defenseless players alone, we’ll be doing a good job,” Boitmann said.

The punishment for such action will be severe.