The horse collar call

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

It really looks like a hold on the field, but if you look at the other angle, you can see that the defender's problem is that he got his left arm caught between Donovan's right arm and ribs. Donovan just clamped down and got the defender in an arm bar without holding him. The defender had no leverage and Donovan can lift a horse, so once that happened the defender was screwed. Donovan didn't even need to use his hands at that point, and the defender couldn't get away. So I wonder if the ref astutely saw that and recognized that it's not a hold even though it looks like there's holding.

Right - that arm bar is not strictly a hold and it will NEVER get called.

Well, except for when they called it on Trey Smith on an egregiously bad holding call prior to Saleh's temper tantrum.

You start calling holds for guys doing that to DEs who can't get outside the OTs body (especially when the OL is keeping his balance and directing the guy), you're gonna see a dozen holding penalties per game and/or a whole BUNCH of injured quarterbacks.

If that becomes a hold, the game becomes unwatchable.