49ers studs and duds from difficult Week 10 victory vs. Chargers

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Dre Greenlaw, San Francisco 49ers (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images) /

49ers Dud: Dre Greenlaw (or more accurately the NFL overreaction to ejecting him)

This is a bit harsh on Dre Greenlaw, as the punishment didn’t really fit the crime. But unlucky or not, he has to be on the dud list by default as he got ejected from the game on Sunday.

Or more accurately, the decision to eject him at all is being put on the dud list.

The NFL is cracking down on head-high hits, so it was perhaps not a surprise that the officials called him for targeting and ejected him from the game.

To be clear, I don’t believe this is the correct decision. Greenlaw did not lead with the helmet or target the head and was very unlucky that the target he was aiming at moved and he ended up hitting the helmet of Justin Herbert.

The NFL should absolutely be protecting the heads of players, as the links between blows to the head and CTE demonstrate the fallout of repeated head injuries.

But common sense needs to play out, too. You can’t eliminate every blow to the helmet, it simply cannot happen in a contact sport. In terms of incidental contact like this, the punishment must fit the crime, and that merely didn’t happen in this case.