John Harbaugh Wants the NFL to Explain Cam Skattebo’s Rare Helmet Flag

• Giants running back Cam Skattebo drew a 15-yard flag in the first quarter at Houston on Sunday for lowering his helmet, the first player flagged for it this season while playing offense, per CBS Sports.
• Skattebo said after the game that he will run the way he wants to run, flags and fines included.
• Giants coach John Harbaugh backed him on Monday and said the team has not heard from the league about what it wants coaches to teach.

What the Lowering the Helmet Rule Asks of a Running Back Who Runs Low

Cam Skattebo ran over Texans safety M.J. Stewart in the first quarter on Sunday, and a yellow flag landed on the turf. Officials ruled that Skattebo lowered his helmet to draw contact and called him for unnecessary roughness, a 15-yard penalty. It was the first time in his career he had been flagged for it.

Skattebo came off the field livid with the official. Harbaugh held him back and had a heated exchange of his own. Asked about it on Monday, the Giants coach said: “Did you see me after the play expressing my opinion? That’s how I felt about it.”

Then Harbaugh made a request of the league. He wants the NFL to say what it expects a running back to do.

What the Rule Says and How Rarely It Is Called

The NFL’s lowering the helmet rule, as revised in 2023, makes it a foul if a player “lowers his head and makes forcible contact with his helmet against an opponent.” The same revision says the rule does not prohibit “incidental contact by the mask or the helmet in the course of a conventional tackle or block on an opponent.”

Officials seldom throw the flag. In 2022 there were 229 fines and warnings for lowering the helmet but only four penalties called in games, and running backs received 48 percent of those fines. This season, plenty of players have been fined for it, and Skattebo became the first to be flagged while playing offense.

In 2022, then, the league punished the move after the game far more often than officials penalized it on the field. A flag in the first quarter of a game in Houston is the rare version.

Harbaugh’s Case for Running Low

Harbaugh made his argument in physical terms.

“Skatt runs low. You have to run low. You have to run low to protect the football,” Harbaugh said. “You have to run low to protect your body. You can’t run in there and give tacklers your chest. When you run low, your head’s down there, too. You can’t move your head off your shoulders. It’s a physical impossibility.”

He rejected the idea that his running back uses his head as a weapon. “I’m quite sure Skatt’s not trying to use his helmet as a weapon, as a battering ram,” Harbaugh said. “It’s not the way he’s thinking. He’s leading with his shoulder. That’s what he’s trying to do.”

In Harbaugh’s view, the style is the correct one. “He runs low to the ground. That’s a good thing, that’s football. That’s the way you’re supposed to run. That’s how you protect yourself and the football.”

Why Skattebo Is Angry and What Harbaugh Wants

Skattebo’s complaint goes past one call. “The NFL loves to post me when I do stuff like that but then also wants to take stuff from me,” he said after the game. “I’m going to run the ball like I want to run the ball.” If the flags and fines keep coming, he said, he will “play for free.”

Harbaugh asked for guidance. “I didn’t have a problem with the technique personally at all, but we haven’t heard from the league,” the Giants head coach said. “Maybe they’ll be able to enlighten us a little bit on it in terms of what they want us to teach, and that would be great.”

Harbaugh became an NFL head coach in 2008, first with Baltimore and now with the Giants, and his question is a coaching one. If an official can flag a runner for the way he lowers his body into contact, what does the league want a coach to teach?

What Is Still Open

Skattebo had a big day at Houston. He rushed for 124 yards and a touchdown on 17 carries, a turnaround from Week 6, when he had zero touches.

As of Monday, the Giants had a flag on the record, a running back who says his approach stays the same, and a head coach waiting for the NFL to put its expectations into terms a coach can teach. Harbaugh said the team had not heard from the league.