Bradshaw chop not his fault, not in spirit of the rule either

Ahmad Bradshaw was flagged for a personal foul on an illegal chop block. But today, center Adam Koets said the penalty was his fault.

“I’ll take that one,” Koets said after watching the tape. “Basically Ahmad was helping block my guy and went low on him. I was sliding to the Mike (blitzing linebacker) and I had by hand on the d-tackle.”

Koets should have stayed with the defensive tackle and allowed the linebacker to come through the hole where Bradshaw was in position to pick him up. But Koets criss-crossed Bradshaw by picking up the linebacker, and then by keeping a hand on the facemask of the tackle he was technically “engaged” with him. Thus the chop block was flagged.

"He was our center’s guy and I jumped over from the Mike because the center took my guy, and I went to chop block him," Bradshaw said after the game. "By the time I was in the air, I didn’t know whether he had his hands on him or not."

While Tom Coughlin said that the flag was appropriate according to the rule, he said it was not in the spirit of the rule. He said when the chop block became illegal it was because defensive linemen were being “lured” in and then cut down and hurt.

“This was a different situation,” Coughlin said. “The center is over here, sliding with his hand out, just feeling his way. Bradshaw comes in and it’s a bigger body so he (goes low). It’s not like we were luring. He was not being lured in to be trapped and cut. That wasn’t the case.

“The rule is the rule. But it’s certainly not the way it was intended. There wasn’t anybody going to get hurt by that, being lured in there.”

Of course Koets also had his hand on the facemask of the defensive tackle. The Giants could have been flagged on that too and in the end zone it would have resulted in a safety.

“But we didn’t,” Coughlin said with a smile.