"Crackback" against Favre?

[SuperHornet]

Let me preface this by saying that I'm no Brett Favre fan, and never have been. Given the quarterbacking talent currently in Minnesota, I firmly believe that they'd be better off signing Tommy Kramer. But I digress....

Did anyone see the footage of this so-called crackback block Favre put on a Houston DB while aligned wide left in a single wing set? It drew a flag and a $10K fine. Houston fans, not to mention the DB and his agent, are screaming bloody murder about "dirty play" on the part of Favre and injustice from the league office, who should have suspended Favre.

This is ludicrous. The play barely met the definition in the crackback rule, and certainly didn't meet the spirit of the rule. It was put in place in the late '70s to protect LINEBACKERS (not DBs) from wide receivers coming in at high speed on running plays BETWEEN THE TACKLES. This play was a freaking single wing tailback sweep (they didn't even bother with the old spin action). Sure, a traditional WR stalk block would have been more effective. But you're asking a guy in camp less than two weeks, never having received that training, to know how to do that? It's not surprising that he fell back on the old QB block. One sees that every day, but people are crying now?

Dirty play? Dirty is Conrad Dobler's leg sweep. Dirty is Jack Tatum's hit on Darryl Stingley. Dirty is Ed Sprinkle's cocked shoulder which knocked out QBs by the dozen. It's too bad that this DB got injured on an outside play when he should have been paying attention to the receivers (a DB's first responsibility is the pass). But this wasn't even close to dirty, and shouldn't have even drawn a flag, much less a fine or suspension.