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As referee Tony Corrente turned on his microphone to announce the first penalty Sunday in Charlotte, you had a pretty good idea what was coming.

A flag was thrown during Santonio Holmes’ punt return, which usually means one of two things: holding or an illegal block in the back.

But no one expected to hear what was about to come out of Corrente’s mouth:

“Personal foul, blindside block, receiving team, No. 53. Penalty will be assessed half the distance to the goal. First down.”

From the stands, to the press box, to living rooms across the country, people everywhere uttered the same question: “What the _______ is a blindside block?”

Well, it’s an actual penalty and it is part of the NFL’s endless quest to protect “defenseless” players, which of course is impossible in a sport where every team has 46 of the strongest people on earth dressed head-to-toe in padding so they can run into each other with the force equivalent to a car crash.

Nonetheless, Rule 12, Section 1, Article 9.a.8 of the NFL Rule Book says “a player who receives a ‘blindside’ block when the blocker is moving toward his own end line and approaches the opponent from behind or from the side” is considered defenseless.

Now, simply blocking a player when you are “moving toward your own end line and approaching that player from behind or from the side” doesn’t automatically make it a penalty. You also need to initiate “unnecessary contact” which is defined as “forcibly hitting the defenseless player’s head or neck area with the helmet, face mask, forearm, or shoulder” or “lowering the head and making forcible contact with the top/crown or forehead/“hairline” parts of the helmet against any part of the defenseless player’s body.”

This was the particular block in question, which came from Bears linebacker Darryl Sharpton on Panthers safety Thomas DeCoud:

https://vine.co/v/OK6XQwgZLWQ/embed/simple?related=0

As you can see, Sharpton is moving toward his own end line, but he appears to be approaching DeCoud head-on, not from behind or on the side. Additionally, even if he was approaching from the side, there doesn’t appear to be any contact deemed “unnecessary”.

He just blocked the guy.

Amazingly, this wasn’t the only “blindside” block called in Sunday’s game between the Bears and Panthers. This Brandon Marshall block was also deemed a “blindside” block:

https://vine.co/v/OK6PLvdjQgB/embed/simple?related=0

DeCoud is once again on the receiving end of the block, but in this case, Marshall is not moving toward his own end line, which means DeCoud should not have been considered “defenseless”. Furthermore, while Marshall lowers his shoulder, he certainly does not forcibly hit DeCoud’s head or neck area.

As you would expect, the Bears turned both of these plays into the league office for further review. However, the bigger issue here isn’t that both penalties were bad calls, but rather that the “blindside block” is one of many confusing, hard to enforce rules that seem to be doing more harm to the game than good.

If you haven’t noticed, the NFL has become harder to watch. Yellow flags are being thrown everywhere and way too many of them are being thrown when they shouldn’t be. Not only is the flow of the game being disrupted, but exciting hits, blocks, catches, e.t.c., are being called back and deleted from the records like they never happened.

Worse, no one seems to know what a penalty is anymore. Fans, reporters, coaches, players and, worst yet, referees seemed to be confused about what should and shouldn’t be called.

And the “blindside block” isn’t the only penalty you’ve never heard of. Here are some more fun ones:

STUFFING THE PASSER

Rule 12, Section 2, Article 13.2: “A rushing defender is prohibited from committing such intimidating and punishing acts as ‘stuffing’ a passer into the ground or unnecessarily wrestling or driving him down after the passer has thrown the ball, even if the rusher makes his initial contact with the passer within the one-step limitation.”

God forbid someone does something “intimidating” in football.

LINGERING

Rule 12, Section 3, Article 1.k: “Using entering substitutes, legally returning players, substitutes on sidelines, or withdrawn players to confuse opponents. The clarification is also to be interpreted as covering any lingering by players leaving the field when being substituted for.”

Careful where you stand. It might be a penalty.

LEAPING

Rule 12, Section 3, Article 1.r: “Clearly running forward and leaping in an obvious attempt to block a field goal, or Try-kick after touchdown and landing on players, unless the leaping player was originally lined up within one yard of the line of scrimmage when the ball was snapped.”

I bet you didn’t know it is illegal to try to block a kick.

INTERLOCKING INTERFERENCE

Rule 12, Section 1, Article 5.b: No offensive player may use interlocking interference by grasping a teammate or by using his hands or arms to encircle the body of a teammate.

In other words, please do not hug your teammates.

The NFL Rule Book truly is one of the more entertaining reads out there. There are even legal maneuvers that will surprise you. For instance, did you know that Rule 12, Section 1, Article 4.1.h says that holding is legal “if the action is part of a double-team block”?

So apparently if you double-team J.J. Watt, you can hold him all day.

But there is an exception: “Holding will be called if the opponent is pulled to the ground by one or both of the blockers.”

So you can hold, just don’t make it blatantly obvious.

Rule 12, Section 1, Article 4.1.i says holding will not be called “if, during a defensive charge, a defensive player uses a ‘rip’ technique that puts an offensive player in a position that would normally be holding.”

Got it. So if the defensive player does something to force the offensive player to hold him, then it won’t be called. Wait, what?

Oh, and there’s another exception: “Holding will be called if the defender’s feet are taken away from him by the offensive player’s action.”

I believe that’s amputation, not holding.

Meanwhile, Rule 12, Section 1, Article 3 says, “If the official has not seen the entire action that sends a defender to the ground, offensive holding will not be called.”

So basically if the official misses the hold, there’s a rule in place that means it wasn’t a hold. In other words, when the tree fell in the forest and no one was around to hear it, the tree really didn’t make a noise. (You’re welcome for your next commercial, Geico.)

And when all else fails, there’s Rule 12, Section 3, Article 3, which is also known as the “Palpably Unfair Act.” This trusty guideline allows referees to call whatever they want whenever they want and enforce the penalty in any way they deem necessary.

Hey, no one is accusing the NFL of being a democracy.

The Palpably Unfair Act states “a player or substitute shall not interfere with play by any act which is palpably unfair.”

And the actual enforcement of a palpably unfair act is described as: “Offender may be disqualified. The Referee, after consulting his crew, enforces any such distance penalty as they consider equitable and irrespective of any other specified code penalty. The Referee could award a score.”

So Sunday when I joked that Corrente was making up penalties, he technically could have been.

But I’ll actually give the NFL some credit here. An example of a palpably unfair act would be a player coming off the bench and tackling a runner headed to the end zone for a touchdown. Obviously, a touchdown should be awarded in that situation. This rule essentially allows the refs to step in and fix something when there might not be an obvious rule to enforce in an unprecedented situation.

And as bad as it looks when the refs struggle through a game — which has happened far too often this season — it seems pretty obvious that every new rule the league passes just seems to add more and more obscurity to what is and is not a penalty.

That’s the real problem.

But in the meantime, I’m going to keep my eye out for the next “lingering” penalty.

Adam Hoge covers the Bears for 87.7 The Game and TheGameChicago.com. Follow him on Twitter at @AdamHoge.