The New Body Weight Rule in the NFL
Posted: September 24th, 2018, 12:43 pm
For the second week in a row, Clay Matthews of the Packers was flagged for a roughing the passer penalty. I saw both hits. They looked like good fundamental form tackling to me.
I understand the rule. When you sack a QB, you can't land on him with most or all of your body weight. I understand the motive for the rule. A lot of QBs have broken ribs and collar bones because when they were sacked, the defender landed on them, and some of these defenders weigh a lot. I just don't think they are implementing it correctly.
There is a key word in the rule which is being overlooked (I believe by some of the officials). It is "unnecessarily". IMO, they need to tell the officals to only call this when they believe the defender "unnecessarily" lands on the QB, OR there will be a lot of penalties for good sacks in which the defender did not really do anything wrong. If a defender is trying to get to a QB as quickly as possible, I don't know how he can make a good tackle and not land on him like Clay Matthews did.
I guess they could start teaching defenders to try to roll as they hit the QB. The problem with that is if the QB rolls onto the defender he is not down and the defender loses a sack and the QB can get away. These roughing the passer penalties can have a major impact on the outcome of games. Hopefully - they will tweak the enforcement of the rule so that they are only calling it when the defender tries to place as much weight as possible on the QB.
OR... just go to two-hand tag.
I understand the rule. When you sack a QB, you can't land on him with most or all of your body weight. I understand the motive for the rule. A lot of QBs have broken ribs and collar bones because when they were sacked, the defender landed on them, and some of these defenders weigh a lot. I just don't think they are implementing it correctly.
There is a key word in the rule which is being overlooked (I believe by some of the officials). It is "unnecessarily". IMO, they need to tell the officals to only call this when they believe the defender "unnecessarily" lands on the QB, OR there will be a lot of penalties for good sacks in which the defender did not really do anything wrong. If a defender is trying to get to a QB as quickly as possible, I don't know how he can make a good tackle and not land on him like Clay Matthews did.
I guess they could start teaching defenders to try to roll as they hit the QB. The problem with that is if the QB rolls onto the defender he is not down and the defender loses a sack and the QB can get away. These roughing the passer penalties can have a major impact on the outcome of games. Hopefully - they will tweak the enforcement of the rule so that they are only calling it when the defender tries to place as much weight as possible on the QB.
OR... just go to two-hand tag.