NFL rule makes for sad sacks
Defenders, afraid of roughing calls, feeling frustrated
Breeland Speaks admitted that next time, he’s just going to have to risk roughing the quarterback. It would be better to make the play and draw the flag than do what Speaks did Sunday night.
Speaks, 22, the Chiefs’ rookie pass rusher, had Tom Brady wrapped up on 3rd and 4 from Kansas City’s 4-yard line and the visitors leading New England, 33-30, with under six minutes to play in Foxborough.
But when Brady pumpfaked a pass under pressure, Speaks let go of Brady, thinking the ball was gone and afraid of getting hit with a roughing the passer call that would have given the Patriots a first down.
The result? Brady sprinted forward and dove for the Patriots touchdown and a 37-33 lead.
“I thought the ball was gone,” Speaks told reporters after the Chiefs (5-1) suffered their first loss of the season. “Because I thought the ball was gone I didn’t take him to the ground. It sucks. You’re supposed to finish plays like that.”
“(But) it’s just the risk we gotta take now,” Speaks added. “Whether we get the flag or not, whatever happens, you just gotta go ahead and push through it and go ahead and make that play.”
Through Week 6, officials have thrown 53 flags for roughing the passer, 15 more than in 2017 over that same time.
Giants fans will remember back in 2006 when Mathias Kiwanuka was afraid of getting a roughing the passer flag when he had a chance to finish off the Titans. With the Giants leading by seven with just under three minutes to play and the Titans facing a 4th and 10, Kiwanuka got to the QB and wrapped him up when he felt Vince Young make a throwing motion. Thinking the ball was out, the Giants defensive end let Young go, yet Young had not thrown the ball and was able to scramble for a first down.
“At that point, I thought it was going to be a 15-yard penalty for roughing the passer if I threw him to the ground,” said Kiwanuka after the game.
The Titans later tied the game on a Young TD pass, and then won it in regulation with a game-winning field goal.
That was 12 years ago. In today’s game, confusion among defensive players is on the rise.
It says something about how confusing and frustrating NFL rules and their enforcement have gotten that defensive players now are saying they may be better off actually ignoring the rule altogether than abiding by it.
It’s just the latest turn in this season’s maddening roller coaster of rules referendums.
In September, Miami Dolphins defensive end William Hayes tore the ACL in his right knee precisely because he tried to avoid landing with
his full body weight on Raiders quarterback Derek Carr after a sack.
Packers pass rusher Clay Matthews has been victimized by a pair of horrendous, game-changing roughing the passer penalties against the Minnesota Vikings’ Kirk Cousins and Washington’s Alex Smith.
And the NFL sneakily responded by holding a conference call to discuss the rule, before arrogantly announcing they would make no changes, but behind the scenes supposedly deemphasized its harsh enforcement and created a video to preach more consistency.
And of course the league purposefully left out of the video the two Matthews penalties that had caused the most controversy in the first place. Unsurprisingly, problems have persisted.
The Giants’ Kerry Wynn last week in Carolina, for example, was flagged for roughing the passer for finishing a legal hit (that wasn’t late) on the Panthers’ Cam Newton. If he hadn’t finished the hit, who knows if Newton would have pump-faked the ball and run? The defensive player can’t take that chance, as Speaks learned Sunday, but the NFL’s rules make it a loselose for them.
Even in Thursday’s loss to the Eagles, Wynn had a chance to legally lay out Philly QB Carson Wentz before Wentz released his first touchdown pass. But Wynn held up clearly because of his penalty in Carolina.
And this isn’t even covering horrible calls like the unnecessary roughness call on Landon Collins in Carolina despite inadvertent contact (which the NFL later admitted was the wrong call); the missed false start on the Chargers’ Russell Okung before a big L.A. touchdown in Cleveland Sunday; and the unflagged Vontaze Burfict headshot on Antonio Brown in Bengals-Steelers.