In a tweet this afternoon older brother, JJ Watt, wanted to know how his little brother’s, TJ Watt, missed turned QB stumble sack turned into a roughing the passer penalty. We would like answers too JJ.
An excerpt from the NFL roughing the passer rule:
“A rushing defender is prohibited from forcibly hitting in the knee area or below a passer who has one or both feet on the ground, even if the initial contact is above the knee. It is not a foul if the defender is blocked (or fouled) into the passer and has no opportunity to avoid him.”
This part of the rule seems to be what younger Watt was flagged for, but even then it seems to be a stretch of the rule as it didn’t seem to be a “forcible” hit.
During the Bucs MNF football game vs the Steelers, The Bucs had two questionable calls against them for roughing the passer (one a piece for McCoy and JPP). The second call on JPP was an inadvertent hand to the helmet (it sounds worse than it was), and the call was made after Rothlesburger sold it to the refs with some good acting.
Both of those calls were centered around the leagues emphasis on this part of the rule:
“A rushing defender is prohibited from committing such intimidating and punishing acts as “stuffing” a passer into the ground or unnecessarily wrestling or driving him down after the passer has thrown the ball, even if the rusher makes his initial contact with the passer within the one-step limitation provided for in (a) above. When tackling a passer who is in a defenseless posture (e.g., during or just after throwing a pass), a defensive player must not unnecessarily or violently throw him down or land on top of him with all or most of the defender’s weight. Instead, the defensive player must strive to wrap up the passer with the defensive player’s arms and not land on the passer with all or most of his body weight.“
The steps the league has taken to protect what is now considered to be the most important player of the game, are understandable. Many believe though the league has gone too far though, and has altered game play too much in a negative way. Not to mention the player and coaching frustration on how to coach/execute around this rule.
It is still early in the season and it doesn’t look like the league is altering the rule in the short term, but hopefully this is something they will address in the 2019 off season.
