It’s always important to understand WHY a rule exists in the first place. Do you know why it exists? Roy Williams.

Roy Williams was a DB at Oklahoma before being drafted by the Dallas Cowboys. Now Roy wasn’t the first person to ever use this method to take players down, but boy was he famous for it and he brought it en vogue to the NFL in 2002.

In 2004, it caused 6 serious injuries (4 of them by Roy Williams). It’s how TO broke his leg.

Why is it so dangerous? When you grab a player by the back of his jersey or especially by slipping your hand in between the shoulder pads, you jerk him backwards violently, often resulting the player’s legs getting folding up under them, which is made even worse if the defender lands on top of him. So many serious leg injuries were caused by this maneuver - broken bones, ligament tears etc. That’s why it was banned.

So what happened with Josh Allen. Reddick initially grabbed him by the front of the jersey (legal), he balanced this by grabbing the back of his jersey/shoulder pad area (not technically legal), but the result was that Allen was brought down safely to the ground. He was not bent backwards and pulled down backwards, which is at the heart of the rule.

Could a ref technically call that a horse collar? Sure. I don’t think anyone would blame him for enforcing it so literally. But the reality is that the Allen sack was not in the spirit of why the rule exists in the first place and that’s why it’s a good no-call IMO.