If you've played any physical sport, as you have, you know there are split-second choices that you make all the time. That said, your own narrative above barely supports the notion that players make the "right" split-second choices as a matter of course all the time, as later you cite the example of the guy getting his foot stomped on.
A closer reading of your own experience might be "most do, some don't." I could agree with that.
Not calling you out - just trying top clarify what is a commonly misnomered thought process among both players and fans. We don't
want to think what we know, deep in our knowers, to be true.
Then there's this "Face it every NFL team has its share of "dirty" players including the Rams."
Who, on the Rams, are you specifically talking about? And I'm also curious: Is being retaliatory, especially when non-calls give the initial offender an advantage, "dirty" in the same sense as the first offense? In that sense, is Donald a dirty player?
I wouldn't call Deacn Jones a dirty player. But I recall his taking the law into his own hands a few times when opposing players tried to control him with flat-out dirty play.
Idon't recall who it was, but one guy face-masked him a couple of times. In those days the face mask was usually a bar, nothing more. Deacon eventually got sick of it, probably said something about it beforehand like "Keep that up and I'm gonna rip your %&%#$* head off," (we'll never know for sure, but he did trash talk a bit) and then proceeded on one play to reach out with both hands and grab the helmet-face mask and shake it side-to-side like a dog shaking a chew toy for several seconds before throwing the guy on the ground. That ended that. Deacon was dominan for the rest of the game.
Dirty play? Not in my book.
Joseph's hit on Higbee? Absolutely.
