It's Official: Ineligible Receiver Rules Have Driven John Harbaugh Insane
By Matt Dolloff, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- Ever since the moment former Patriots running back Shane Vereen took the field as an ineligible receiver against the Baltimore Ravens in the 2014 AFC Divisional Round, he ostensibly triggered Ravens head coach John Harbaugh's gradual descent into madness.
With every passing formation, every wide-open catch by Michael Hoomanawanui, Harbaugh took another step toward going the way of Jack Torrance. His latest strike in the crusade against eligible/ineligible receiver rules making him look bad, a proposal made by Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti to discuss at next week's owners meeting, all but confirms his reservations at the Overlook.
According to Darin Gantt at Pro Football Talk, the Ravens' rule proposal requires players with "ineligible" jersey numbers (50-79 or 90-99) to "wear a jersey vest matching the team uniform, with an appropriate number for his eligible or ineligible status that has not already been assigned to another teammate." In other words, pinnies. Those things you wore to separate the red and blue teams in first-grade kickball.
Some background ... You surely remember the eligible/ineligible shenanigans by the Patriots in the 2014 playoffs that Harbaugh labeled "clearly deception." You may not recall that the Ravens tried the same kind of trickeration in a game against the Oakland Raiders, which was successful, but failed when they tried it again against the Arizona Cardinals. The referee did not recognize Ravens offensive lineman John Urschel as eligible and flagged the team for an illegal formation.
The official had been making a ruling on a previous play, which Urschel interpreted as getting the OK to be an eligible receiver. The communication wasn't clear enough on the play, so the Ravens are proposing the idea of pinnies for ineligible players reporting as eligible.
Not only would this severely complicate things for coaches and equipment managers, who need to have players ready to run on and off the field at a moment's notice without worrying about what jersey they were wearing, it would essentially defeat the purpose of the formations in the first place. Harbaugh and the Ravens want to remove all possible trickiness from a trick play.
Let's make Wade Phillips slap pinnies on all his extra blitzers while we're at it. Let's make Von Miller signal to Tom Brady when he's dropping back into coverage. I'm sure Harbaugh is still working on his proposal to make Julian Edelman signal whenever he's about to make a double-pass.
Harbaugh, however, is stopping short of calling for an outright ban because, you know, something about having a cake and eating it too.
It's unclear why Harbaugh and the Ravens want to turn a very specific and relatively rare kind of play into something so unnecessarily convoluted. He seems desperate to remove any mental aspect from the play whatsoever. Or he's just going full John Nash on us. Either way, there should be little to no chance this rule proposal gains any traction.
Matt Dolloff is a writer for CBSBostonSports.com. His opinions do not necessarily reflect that of CBS or 98.5 The Sports Hub. Have a news tip or comment for Matt? Follow him on Twitter @mattdolloff and email him at mdolloff@985thesportshub.com.
