The NFL suspended Los Angeles Chargers S Derwin James this week after his illegal hit on Pittsburgh Steelers TE Pat Freiermuth on Sunday. While the Freiermuth hit precipitated the suspension, the NFL suspended James as a repeat offender. His head coach, Jim Harbaugh, strongly defended him on Wednesday when addressing the suspension, and the hit, blaming Freiermuth.
“There was not a defenseless player, changed his course, and I thought that Derwin’s helmet was stiff-armed by Mr. Freiermuth”, Harbaugh said of James’ illegal hit against the Steelers, via Michael David Smith of Pro Football Talk. “I thought that caused his head to make the contact, and I thought the contact was first with the forearm, then the shoulder, then the head”.
Derwin James struck Pat Freiermuth in the head shortly before halftime, spotting the Steelers 15 yards via penalty. As Freiermuth turned upfield, James went in for the tackle. Freiermuth did attempt to stiff-arm James, but it had no effect whatsoever on what ensued. If anything, the meager attempt softened the direct helmet-to-helmet blow he suffered.
Jim Harbaugh attempting to claim that Freiermuth redirected James’ helmet into his own strikes me as more than disingenuous. While James may have intended to aim at a more legal portion of Freiermuth’s body, he was, at best, targeting the neck area, which also qualifies for a foul. The fact that he also left his feet and “launched” into the hit is a strike against him. He was literally an entire foot off the ground.
“You can never really take the head out of the game because it’s in between the two shoulders”, Harbaugh said. He added that Derwin James is trying to avoid such hits “to the best of his human ability” and that he “genuinely cares and wants to do it the absolute right way”.
James “has reached out on his own to officials this past summer to gain a better grasp of how they want it done”, Harbaugh continued, “literally going out of his way, sometimes giving up yards, so that he can not injure another player or hit him with the head. So yeah, I’m disappointed”.
Derwin James has drawn more than half a dozen personal fouls over the course of his career, including four last season. It was likely the accumulation of penalties that spurred his reaching out to the league, to try to avoid flags. But he didn’t avoid hitting Pat Freiermuth in the head when he could have.
James is a former Pro Bowl safety who by and large has had a good reputation around the league. His recent string of personal fouls following a run of injuries has diminished that some in recent years, but he is still one of the most talented safeties in the game.
But James is no more free to illegally strike players than anybody else is. Jim Harbaugh can argue that it’s Pat Freiermuth’s fault for getting in a half-hearted, short-armed stiff-arm attempt in that marginally redirected the contact point, but that didn’t cause the illegal hit. And it is the defender’s responsibility to avoid such hits at all costs, as the rules state. Harbaugh claims that is what James is doing, but he didn’t here—or his feet would have been on the ground.
