Folks – this was called roughing the passer. This is not the refs fault. The rules are off! What have they done to the game we love? #vikings pic.twitter.com/fIInp6VmQ2
— VikeFans (@VikeFans) August 18, 2018
Remember when Aaron Rodgers was driven into the ground in October last year by Anthony Barr? Of course you do because it sent Aaron Rodgers to the showers for the rest of the year and has led the NFL to go to a new level of extreme to protect its most precious asset. Folks, the NFL wants its quarterbacks on the field and if that means not hitting the quarterbacks, that’s what they’re going to do.
Take Saturday’s Jags-Vikings game above where you have a fairly simple sack that you’ve seen thousands of times. The difference now is that the refs are going to flag defenders if they feel that the quarterback was driven into the ground. Judgement call and it’s going to drive you absolutely insane going forward.
Folks, the more valuable your QB is to the NFL, the more calls that QB is going to get under the Aaron Rodgers Rule. Think I’m crazy? Just wait. Let’s go back to earlier this month for how the NFL is going to police this.
According to NFL official Pete Morelli, who explained the league’s rule changes to a group of Twin Cities media on Thursday, Barr’s hit would fall under a point of emphasis the NFL has instituted for 2018. It would be a 15-yard penalty for roughing the passer.
Rule 12 in the NFL’s 2018 rulebook details player conduct. Under Article 9, which explains the rules around roughing the passer, the manner in which a quarterback in a defenseless position (which is just after he has completed throwing a pass) is tackled is the point of emphasis.
The rule states the following:
“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.”
Your dad is going to lose his mind in a couple weeks when he doesn’t understand the new rules. He’s been busting his asss working in the yard all summer and didn’t hear about this rule book change. Read that again: “…must strive to wrap up the passer with the defensive player’s arms and not land on the passer…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Di7m4oyBt4
