Mike Pereira: Lowering-helmet rule ‘going to be impossible to officiate’

Mike Pereira wasn’t “shocked” the NFL instituted a rule that makes lowering the head and making contact a 15-yard penalty, with possible ejection, because he knew the push for it was going on for a long time.

Yet, the league’s former head of officiating still doesn’t like the idea of it, nor does he think it’s the solution to the NFL’s efforts to remove the helmet as a tool/weapon when initiating contact.

‘You’ll see the same things happen with this as we’ve seen with the crown-of-the-helmet rule: very few calls’

That was what Pereira’s main take when he appeared on the SiriusXM Blitz with Bruce Murray and James Lofton.

“I think it’s going to be impossible to officiate,” Pereira, an NFL rules analyst for Fox Sports, said. “You’ll see the same things happen with this as we’ve seen with the crown-of-the-helmet rule: very few calls. I think most of it will be taken care of after the fact with potential fines.

‘This is a slippery slope, because you can’t take the head totally out of the game’

“There was a push to get to this point that’s been going on for a long time, so while I’m surprised I’m not shocked. There’s more to it. And I talked to Al Riveron (the league’s current head of officiating) after this happened and I said, ‘Please explain to me how you look at this and what are you going to say to the officials?’ His point to me was that it’s relatively simple. Nothing’s simple when it comes to they’re educating players or whether it’s educating coaches or your own officials. This is a slippery slope, because you can’t take the head totally out of the game.

“The part that I heard (Thursday), which really does concern me, is the talk of instant replay being involved with this and to validate if there are ejections — if they’re not ejected or should be ejected or maybe even the reverse. (It’s) much closer to the targeting rule than I thought it would be.”

‘I see these rule changes, and I don’t want to call it hysteria, but there is to me a bit of overreaction’

Pereira sees the same thought process behind the lowering-the-head rule as there was behind the decision behind outlawing the crown of the helmet.

“I have to say that everybody erupted when they had the crown-of-the-helmet rule, which came in about four years ago with the runner and the tackler,” he said. “Two were called the very first year and they were both wrong, and there were none called in the two years after that. I see these things happen, I see these rule changes, and I don’t want to call it hysteria, but there is to me a bit of overreaction.”