Rodgers rule may baffle NFL fans
More protection for passing QBs
Sometimes a quarterback, at least one not named Tom Brady, is a runner and sometimes he’s a passer.
Under a new rule this season, some defensive penalties will hinge on how officials make that determination.
While most of the early talk during the NFL’s pre-season has concerned implementation of the helmet rule, this rule — call it the Anthony Barr rule or, more precisely, the Aaron Rodgers rule — came up Saturday and the Minnesota Vikings were again involved.
This time, the key players were Antwione Williams and Cody Kessler of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Williams was flagged for what looked like a perfectly legal sack of the quarterback, if you were living in 2017.
Head to the side? Check. Quarterback brought down cleanly with both players emerging uninjured? Check.
The problem was that Williams’ weight landed on Kessler and he was called for roughing the passer.
Vikings coach Mike Zimmer hated the fourth-quarter call as he stood on the sideline, but he later changed his tune.
After all, he has a franchise quarterback, too.
“After I calmed down a little bit, I looked at it and he ... kind of pumped him to the turf,” Zimmer said. “I actually think that was a good call.’’
Observers will recall that Rodgers’s 2017 season essentially ended in Week 6 when Barr brought him down, with his weight driving Rodgers, who was out of the pocket on the play, into the ground and snapping his right collarbone. Barr wasn’t flagged on the play.
“It was deemed a legal hit,” Rodgers, who required surgery to repair the displaced fracture and played in only one game the rest of the season, said last December.
“You know that you don’t have the same protection outside the pocket. A simple shovedown probably would have sufficed in that situation, but it is what it is.”
Had that play occurred in 2018, it would have drawn a flag.
“Players will have to kind of roll to the side when they make that tackle instead of plopping down on them,” referee Pete Morelli said earlier this month.
“So, yeah, (the) Aaron Rodgers (tackle) would be a foul this year. As long as he’s out of pocket, established, and all that. If he’s running, that’s not the same.’’
Even though Rodgers was out of the pocket, Morelli said he had reestablished himself as a passer.
“When he’s a passer in a defenceless position,” Morelli said. “If you roll out and get set up, you’re still a passer now. But if you’re rolling out and throwing, and a guy is chasing you and tackles you, then you’re not defenceless. They get two steps and they can tackle you. Becoming defenceless is setting up (for a pass) again, pocket or outside the pocket.”
Barr admitted it’s a “very difficult situation” to be in.
“You’re playing fast, trying to make a play on the ball. It’s going to be tough,” he said.