Looked inadvertent to me.
“It is a foul if a player lowers his head to initiate and make contact with his helmet against an opponent.”
If that no-call is made in any other game: I would be as outraged. But I can save my outrage. Because that call is made every single time. As a matter of fact many calls were made over the years calling it helmet to helmet hits or hits to the helmet when the receiver was hit on the chest or below the chin.
“It is a foul if a player lowers his head to initiate and make contact with his helmet against an opponent.”
—while also having established three criteria for what warrants an ejection:
- Lowering the head (not to include bracing for contact)
- Initiating contact with the helmet to any part of an opponent. Contact does not have to be to an opponent’s head or neck area—lowering the head and initiating contact to an opponent’s torso, hips, and lower body, is also a foul.
- Making contact on an opponent (both offense and defense)
- The player lowers his helmet to establish a linear body posture prior to initiating and making contact with the helmet;
- The player delivering the blow had an unobstructed path to his opponent; and if
- The contact was clearly avoidable