...but he sure did perfect it... damn...


Williams knocked 3, count em, 3 players out for the season with 3 horse-collar tackles... Musa Smith, Tyrone Calico, and of course, Terrell Owens... the NFL will probably outlaw said tackles next season, making them 15-yard penalties and handing out fines for them...


I love Roy like a brother, but damn, that's insane... 3 guys...



So to bring back the good memories of Roy, lets see him level the shit out of some stupid punter... oh wait, that's Plummer... sssnap

Has he jacked up Jeremy Shockey yet? I'm sure there are plenty who would like to see both him and Sean Taylor nail him.

Jack Tatum was pretty good at the horse collar, it was more of a clothesline. His book is great BTW. "They Call me Assassin" is the name of it.

This makes me sad.

Roy tried, but Shockey took him to school.

roy williams is a fucking monster

Maaaan do you even remember that play? There was nobody on that side to guard Shockey so Roy caught it at the last second, drifted over and was late on the play... Shockey sure as hell wasn't Roy's assignment... one of the awesome plays made by our outstanding secondary core, I must say

I remember it well.......it wasn't Roy's assignment (or maybe it was?), but he was still there when the ball was snapped. Warner threw a nice lob/fade....and Shockey used the slightest of push-offs to get a little seperation. I remember one of my friends who's a Cowboys fan called me like 2 seconds after the play bitching that it should have been offensive pass interfernece, and I was like, "how do you think Micheal Irvin caught half his TD's?". My friend quickly hung up.........

imagine if roy and ed reed were on the same team

What exactly is a horse-collar tackle? I've been watching Darren Sharper for the last 8 years, who executes the "duck your head and hope you make contact" tackle to PERFECTION. I have no knowledge of this horse-collar thing.

you grab someone from behind at the top of their shoulder pads and fall down

Oh okay...I know what that is. But I kept looking at the picture in the first post (Williams crushing Plummer) and I couldn't figure out the horse-collar aspect of that particular tackle. My bad.

nah, that particular tackle is your typical dirty "leading with the head" tackle.

the man's a menace!

williams is a beast. its much more enjoyable watching this guy hit someone than doing a "horse collar" tackle.

i also like the rule change about blocking unsuspecting players. i saw someone last year (someone on cinci maybe) get their ankle snapped pretty bad b/c of these types of blocks they are outlawing.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/s ... 3722&num=0

Cowboys' Williams target of rule change
By Len Pasquarelli
ESPN.com

When the NFL outlawed the head slap, the synapse-numbing move popularized by Deacon Jones that rendered pass-blockers dazed and senseless, it didn't name the rule for the former Los Angeles Rams star.

But everyone knew it was the Hall of Fame defensive end, maybe the greatest pass-rusher in NFL history, who precipitated the sanctions with the terror he wrought.

Terrell Owens suffered torn ankle ligaments from this tackle by Roy Williams.
Nowhere in the NFL officiating handbook, either, will you find reference to the so-called "Isaac Curtis Rule." It was incessant muggings of the former Cincinnati Bengals wideout by cornerbacks, however, that forced the league to deign receivers could not be hit once they were more than 5 yards beyond the line of scrimmage.

Earlier this year, when the NFL banned certain peel-back blocks against unsuspecting defenders, few specifically singled out Denver Broncos offensive tackle George Foster as a culprit. Unless you live in a cave, though, and never viewed any of the thousands of replays that graphically illustrate the cheap shot Foster used against Tony Williams, which broke the ankle of the Bengals defensive lineman, you know whose indiscretion served as catalyst for the new rule.

No horsing around
Cowboys safety Roy Williams is hardly the lone defender in the league to employ the so-called "horse-collar" tackle, but his play in 2004 was certainly the principle catalyst for a proposed rules change to outlaw the technique. Here are four examples of Williams' use of the horse-collar tackle in 2004 that were reviewed by the NFL competition committee:

And so next week, when owners figure to expunge the "horse-collar" tackle, as they convene for two days of meetings in Washington, count on the banishment being known, at least temporarily, as the "Roy Williams Rule."

"I guess that I have arrived," the Dallas Cowboys safety said when apprised of the pending action against a technique that he has used since college.

Maybe so. But the horse-collar tackle that Williams perfected, perhaps to excess, appears to be going, going, almost gone. Most observers, including Atlanta Falcons president Rich McKay, co-chairman of the NFL's powerful competition committee, think the horse-collar tackle is about to exit the game for good.

McKay has been around long enough to know the imprudence of trying to prognosticate the outcome of any NFL vote. But assuming the recommendation of the competition committee is brought to a roll call in Washington – the matter was tabled at the annual league meetings in Maui, Hawaii, just two months ago – sanctions against the horse-collar tackle are expected to be immediately enacted.

The tackle, in which a defender grabs onto a ball carrier or receiver by the inside of the shoulder pads from behind and then yanks him down, will result in a 15-yard penalty. To distinguish between a horse-collar tackle and a tackle that occurs during close, in-line play, the foul must occur at least 3 yards outside the "tackle box," essentially in the open field.

While Williams is hardly the lone defender in the league to employ the technique, the fact he seriously injured four players in 2004 while using the horse-collar move to drag them down in the secondary clearly provided the biggest impetus for outlawing the tackle.

In each of the four cases in which players were injured by Williams, the competition committee determined the Dallas safety had ignored the opportunity to make a more conventional tackle.

"There are some plays, maybe that fall into the gray area at times, that don't belong in our game," said Tennessee Titans head coach Jeff Fisher, the other co-chairman of the competition committee. "And we've determined that's one of them."

The committee concluded, McKay said, there were six horse-collar tackles in '04 that resulted in serious injuries. The most infamous, of course, was Williams' much-reviewed drag-down tackle on Terrell Owens after a 20-yard reception. The play, in the 14th game of the year, resulted in a broken right leg and severely sprained ankle for the Philadelphia star, and sidelined him for the final two regular-season contests and the first two playoff outings. Owens returned, famously, for Super Bowl XXXIX, playing against the orders of the specialist who treated him, and with two surgical screws in his leg.

In the eyes of most observers, the tackle against Owens will forever serve as the incident that most affected the competition committee and forced a review of the technique. But it was not the only horse-collar tackle that resulted in a debilitating injury.

San Diego wide receiver Reche Caldwell is still rehabilitating from the torn right anterior cruciate ligament he sustained last Oct. 17, when he was tackled by Atlanta Falcons defensive back Aaron Beasley.

"It's like you're stopped in your tracks, first off, and then yanked back (violently)," said Caldwell, recalling the tackle that knocked him out for the final six games of the season. "The (torque) imposed on your body, with you going one way and then suddenly pulled the opposite direction and then down, is just too much."

In a league where players and coaches annually insist little is new under the sun, the horse-collar tackle isn't exactly a technique recently introduced. But there has been a convergence of events … the increased use of the horse-collar move in a league where form tackling is clearly a diminished skill, the recent spate of serious injuries, and the NFL's diligence in matters related to player safety … that directed new focus to it.

As with all rules changes, three-quarters of the NFL's 32 owners must vote for the horse-collar sanction for it to be approved. It appeared in March, at the meetings in Maui, that there were sufficient votes to adopt the rule. But the issue was tabled because there were still some issues with the language of the rule and the owners and the committee felt the verbiage needed to be refined.

Cowboys coach Bill Parcells, who is believed to favor the horse-collar rule, was among those who sought more clarification.

"I think all of us are for the safety of the players … but you just can't indiscriminately pass that rule," Parcells said. "What about the running back (going) through the line? I mean, are you allowed to tackle him like that, or are the linemen not allowed to do that, either? Then how are (the linemen) going to get the guy? The obvious open-field case, like what happened with (Williams), OK, we want to protect the player, but how is that going to be officiated? To just say 'no horse collar at all,' that includes a lot of things."

McKay acknowledged the issue of the horse-collar tackle wasn't brought to the attention of the competition committee until just before the March league meetings, and thus did not receive as much review by the group as some other matters. It was not, for instance, discussed at the pre-draft scouting combine in February, where the committee typically huddles, and where rules changes often originate.

"It came to us sort of late in the going," McKay said. "So, in that sense, maybe it was better that it was (originally) tabled. We've had more time to tighten the language, and to take any ambiguity out of it. If you read the rule as it is now, and as it will be presented to the owners, it's pretty clear that it applies to open-field tackles. There shouldn't be any questions about that."

Even to this day, the competition committee has never spoken to Williams about the play. Still, the league appears poised to move forward with the horse-collar moratorium.

And Williams, a three-year veteran and former first-round draft choice, seems prepared to become the latest player to have his name unofficially affixed to a rules change. He also is resigned to having to alter at least one technique in his tackling repertoire.

"It doesn't bother me, but I think it's a crazy rule," Williams told the Dallas Morning News. "If an offensive player beats you, what other way is there to bring him down? You can't arm-tackle guys, because they're too big, too fast. There's only one open place to grab and bring him down if he's running away from you.

"Is it fair? No. But rules are rules. I'll deal with it."

• In an Aug. 30 preseason game, Williams dragged down Tennessee wide receiver Tyrone Calico on a second-quarter end-around play that was nullified by a holding penalty. On the play, Calico sprained both knees, and suffered a cartilage tear in his left knee. Calico had arthroscopic surgery to repair the cartilage, and he missed the first three games of the regular season.

• Williams knocked out a pair of Baltimore tailbacks, starter Jamal Lewis and backup Musa Smith, within minutes of each other in a Nov. 21 game. On a play early in the first quarter, he horse-collared Lewis after a three-yard reception, sending the Ravens star to the sideline. Lewis returned for one play on the ensuing series, but then limped off with a badly sprained left ankle, which sidelined him for the balance of that game and for the following two contests. The injury sustained by Smith, a compound fracture of the right tibia, was far more serious and sidelined the second-year veteran for the final six games of the year. The play occurred with less than two minutes remaining in the first quarter, with Williams tackling Smith after a 12-yard run off right tackle.

• Undoubtedly the most infamous horse-collar tackle by Williams came in the Cowboys' game at Philadelphia on Dec. 19. Williams pulled down wide receiver Terrell Owens in the third quarter at the end of a 20-yard catch-and-run by the Eagles star. Owens was bent back on the play and broke his right leg and severely sprained his ankle. He missed the final two games of the season, and also Philadelphia's first two playoff outings, before returning for Super Bowl XXXIX.

--Len Pasquarelli

if his fat ass was a little faster he wouldnt have to horse-collar everyone

yeah, like when he caught TO from behind. poor TO.

like i said, if williams was faster he wouldnt have had to horse-collar him, but williams knew TO would smoked him so he grabbed him by the neck

and broke the bitch's leg