WATCH: Aaron Rodgers passionately calls out NCAA over 'ridiculous' officiating change
College football’s targeting rule has drawn the ire of fans, coaches and players since its inception and implementation in 2019. Now Aaron Rodgers, the current Green Bay Packers quarterback and former signal caller at Cal, has chimed in on the subject.
Doing a hit on the Pat McAfee Show on Tuesday afternoon, Rodgers went on a bit of a side tangent on the college rules amid a discussion about new taunting rules in the NFL. He is not a fan of the college targeting rule.
“We just gotta be careful going too far on some of these rules,” Rodgers said. “It’s like what college did with targeting. Are you sh*tting me? Like, it’s absolutely ridiculous. You’re ruining these kids and teams opportunities by subjective calls or weird movements that a defender makes or an offensive player lowers their head last minute and it becomes a helmet to helmet and we’re taking kids out of a — first half, they’re out of that game; second half they’re out of the second half and the first half of the next game. I mean, the punishment doesn’t fit the crime at all. It’s ridiculous. So we gotta be careful how far we go on some of these rules.”
McAfee and his show compatriot AJ Hawk assented with Rodgers. McAfee offered his two cents, suggesting trying to examine intent could be worthwhile.
He cited the example of former Clemson linebacker James Skalski, who had been ejected from the national championship game against LSU in January 2020 and then again in the national semifinal against Ohio State on New Years Day, 2021. Both ejections came on plays where McAfee thinks there wasn’t an intent to do anything but make a hard hit and a tackle.
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“I think they should look at intent. And I guess that’s hard to sell, or whatever. But if a guy is clearly putting his head down and trying to spear somebody and take them out, I think that’s very obvious,” McAfee said. “Where if a guy like Skalski gets a big time shot and his intent just to make a tackle and you’re kicking this guy out of the national f*cking championship game? This guy, like that’s — he’s worked his entire life. And in college, you lose one game, you’re not going to go to the national championship. So you take a guy out that’s like a staple of your defense who is probably the reason that your team maybe goes to the national championship. It’s an interesting thing and we’re in a time right now where everyone is trying to overcorrect things and maybe we’ll finally settle in.”
Rodgers agreed with the host. Replay could be used to judge intent, according to Rodgers, and he managed to work in a jab at Hawk while he was at it.
“I think you’re right, though, Pat,” Rodgers said. “I think you can, especially with the help of replay, look at intent. If a guy is spearing, eyes closed, cheap-shotting a guy like AJ used to do to me at practice? Kick him out of the game. For sure, kick him out of the game. But if a guy is making a head-up tackle and the offensive player lower his head or does a weird thing and it becomes helmet-to-helmet, that shouldn’t be grounds for an ejection. That’s ridiculous. You’re impacting these kids lives on a grand scheme and I don’t think that’s right.”