That mild slap to Dak Prescott’s helmet being called for Roughing the Passer is was pathetically awful.
Literally touching the QB’s helmet is a roughing penalty. An actual slap is pretty egregious. That’s not an awful penalty, it will be called every time if the officials see it.
You can say the rule is awful, but the penalty was absolutely correct.
That’s simply not true.
“Referees will be particularly alert to fouls in which defenders impermissibly use the helmet and/or facemask to hit the passer, or use hands, arms, or other parts of the body to hit the passer forcibly in the head or neck area.”
If we’re talking about the same play, the contact I saw was not near “forcible”.
That is not the rule.
It does not have to be forcible, not these days. At least not the way the rule is enforced.
Here’s the full quote from the NFL Rulebook:
While it may be enforced for marginal cases, the rules as I read it requires the hit to be forcibly made. Neither this hit nor the one in the Pats game was forcible. It’s bad officiating, whether it’s common or not.
Bills are 4-1!!
But so much leeway is given to the referees that they can do that. This year they were calling holding penalties left and right. It was getting crazy and eventually Tom Brady publicly called them out on it, and then they started easing off. Apparently there’s a lot of wiggle room, depending on what is a “point of emphasis” in officiating. The rules weren’t changed, they just enforced them differently.
In response to the CTE publicity they started getting really touchy about anything that involved a QB’s head. If you’ve watched many football games the last couple of seasons they have been pretty consistent about it. It is absolutely controversial and many people don’t like it. I don’t like it. But that’s the NFL.
And three of those wins were away games.
The Bills’ remaining schedule has four games against teams that haven’t won a game this season and two games against teams that are currently 1-4.
It turns out that the Chiefs really can’t defend against the run. Or that much against the pass when they have to worry about not being able to stop the run.
And that Mahomes needs two ankles to work his magic.
There have been some really entertaining games thus far. The Raiders are 3-2 with a really messed up difficult schedule. Their last three games were a road loss at Min and road wins at Indy and in London. Their next two are at GB and at Hou. If they can escape these 4-3 they look really good to get a wildcard place.
After a horrible week last week for Josh Allen, the coaches gave him a much easier, game-manager role this week and it paid off. His average intended air yards went from 13.4 last week, to just 3.8, second lowest in the NFL this week. Outside of one idiotic throw resulting in an interception (10 IAY), he made the easy, simple throws and won the game. Not an exciting game by any means, but some very good defensive play and a win for the Bills.
Washington fired Jay Gruden (it really isn’t his fault, but God forbid Snyder fire himself or his shitty GM), the Jets lose in predictable fashion, and the Bengals hang close, but lose again, this time to a previously unwinned team. Luckily, I didn’t watch any of these games. Woo Hoo.
Hmmmmm. While Mahommes stats looked good, the offense as a whole didn’t. The running game wasn’t good (I think the Damien Williams era won’t last long, and McCoy’s fumble was costly), and the loss of both Hill and Watkins make it hard to tell if it’s injuries or an adjustment thing. I’ll give it another week.
22 for 27, 306 yards, 2 td’s, and 0 int. Nice game. Against a very bad team, so I don’t think I’ll declare Kirk Cousins back just yet.
Mack was held mostly in check, surprisingly, but the Raiders tried almost everything in their power to throw this game away. Luckily for the Packers, the Bears, especially Chase Daniel, threw it back.
Bridgewater looked very good, Minshew did also, and Allen, Brissett get wins despite being absolutely pedestrian. I didn’t expect Daniels to suck so much, but I’ll take it.
I was surprised how quickly the Cowboys gave up on the run. Granted the quick 14-0 deficit was bad, but the Packers have shown to be weak against the run, and to see one of the best in Zeke only get 12 carries was surprising to me.
Dak had some very nice passes (and some very nice pass catchers, but those 3 int’s killed this team. A lot of garbage time yardage too, which I hope inflates Dak’s value even more. C’mon Jerry, give the guy a ton of money.
It was a great development to see an actual run game take the pressure off Rodgers. I did get the sense, however, the Rodgers is starting to get prickly about some of the play calling. Shouldn’t be a problem if the wins continue, but it could turn ugly. I’m also afraid the defense is too turnover reliant (they played extremely aggressively this game, getting beat deep too often), but I trust Pettine to get it done. Here’s hoping injuries don’t start to pile up.
Yeah, I guess losing to the Patriots was the last straw.
The Skins Made Jay Gruden Come To The Office At 5 A.M. To Get Fired
I don’t think a Snyder team will ever be good. Sell it to an owner who is willing to rename the team to something that not a racial slur (just call it the Warriors and leave the logos/colors the same) and who can hire competent coaches.
So what do the Redskins do with QB? I assume Keenum is legit hurt, McCoy didn’t look good but he has been out since last season and a start against the Pats isn’t the way to get back on track. Haskins looked like a rookie when he relieved Keenum last week. And, do you really want your first round rookie starting behind that 0-line?
Injuries have sucked. Guice didn’t last a game and AP has definitely lost a step since his renaissance last season.
At TE, the ‘Skins were down both Vernon Davis and Jordan Reed and I highly doubt that either of them are exactly eager to return.
Terry McLaurin has looked good in spots this season but was injured last week and didn’t look 100% against the Pats yesterday.
I don’t think a new coach will turn the Redskins around. I think Jay Gruden probably let it be known that he was planning on joining his brother in Las Vegas next season. I haven’t seen much of the Raiders this season but they’re certainly not a dumpster fire as this ‘Skins team is.
Is Snyder just trolling by hiring Bill Callahan as the interim head coach? I assume it’s only temporary until he can hire Zac Taylor or whoever.
Having a Monday Night game following your Bye week is excruciating. At least it’s fun knowing both the Cowboys and Rams have lost twice since the 49ers played their last game.
I bet they didn’t like seeing the Browns soundly beating the Ravens on the road though. They’re not playing the Rams or Cowboys tonight.
I wonder what’s up with Baker Mayfield. I dont think last year was just a fluke, but he’s seriously regressed this season and I’d having a horrible start to this game. I wonder what’s up with him.
The 49ers are dominating. It’s sure fun to watch, but will the other shoe drop?
I’m pretty sure one of the Niners intercepted the other shoe.
New OC has a terrible scheme for Mayfield. Mayfield excelled last year on fast developing plays and quick hitters. This year, half the called plays are plays where every route is slow developing and his first read isn’t even for 2-3 seconds into the play. He’s still nailing those fast reads like quick slants but they’re trying to make him sit behind a bad O-line for 3+ seconds every play before trying to get rid of the ball. The offenses look completely different. There are probably other, less obvious things at work like different decision trees and blocking schemes.
Why you’d hire Kitchens as head coach because you think he’s an up and coming offensive guru, but then hire an OC from totally outside his system to run his own offense makes no sense at all to me.