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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. 

...now I lay thee down to sleep. Place pillow down first. They shouldn't throw a flag for this new rule, but give a red card instead.

The rule is stupid, I think the idea is to stop players from needlessly falling on the qb but its not being applied that way.


What is ironic is that the team complaining about it the most, Packers, are the team that pushed for the rule the hardest last year when Rodgers broke his collorbone in a similar way.

According to the Dolphins' coach, their DE William Hayes tore his ACL yesterday while trying to avoid landing on Derek Carr while sacking him (because of this rule). 

I wouldn’t know, I haven’t watched a snap yet and don’t plan on it. Much happier too btw

4 roughing the passers in the first half of the steeler game.

EaglealumsGhost wrote:I wouldn’t know, I haven’t watched a snap yet and don’t plan on it. Much happier too btw

I was done with the NFL a few years ago, but I got back into it the past two years.  Other than the dumb penalties they keep calling, I think it's been pretty good recently. 

The litigating of the game right out of the sport has ruined it for me. I can’t watch it. I get too mad.... I’ve been way happier just watching on Friday & Saturdays... only a matter of time til it’s ruined too