Change The Rule

By : Mike Rifkin

Over the years the NFL has done a lot in terms of player safety. One of the biggest has become the Roughing the Passer penalty. This season alone there have been multiple awful roughing the passer penalties, but there are three that stand out.  One was on Grady Jarrett of the Falcons, one was on Chris Jones of the Chiefs and then last night there was one on Jaelan Phillips of the Dolphins.

The NFL rulebook defines Roughing the Passer as “Because the act of passing often puts the quarterback (or any other player attempting a pass) in a position where he is particularly vulnerable to injury, special rules against roughing the passer apply. The Referee has principal responsibility for enforcing these rules. Any physical acts against a player who is in a passing posture (i.e. before, during, or after a pass) which, in the Referee’s judgment, are unwarranted by the circumstances of the play will be called as fouls.” These rules include driving the Quarterback to the ground, forcible contact to the head and neck area, hitting the quarterback below the knee, and having a defender’s body weight land on the quarterback. But the league has gotten to the point that where any kind of contact to the quarterback has drawn the ability to be penalized. 

So I’ve seen people say that roughing the passer should become a reviewable play and I used to be in this camp. But the more I think about it, It shouldn’t be reviewable, mostly because I feel that it would go as well as the Pass Interference challenge, which means more often than not the call on the field will stand.  

I think we should rewrite the rule because at this point I think the refs are confused and just throw the flag out of precaution. So my solution is to keep parts of the rule and define other parts. The forcible contact to head and neck area along with shots below the knee will be kept. Driving to the ground will be taken away unless play can be avoided or very late. I would throw the body weight part mainly because what is a defensive player supposed to do? Several seasons ago Charles Harris, then a Miami Dolphin tore his ACL attempting to avoid landing on a Quarterback. If this doesn’t work, then it’s time to put flags on quarterbacks, like in flag football, because it has become apparent that you cannot touch the quarterback.