NFL defends controversial roughing the passer call against Chiefs in video sent to teams

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI - OCTOBER 10: Derek Carr #4 of the Las Vegas Raiders is sacked by Chris Jones #95 of the Kansas City Chiefs during the 2nd quarter of the game at Arrowhead Stadium on October 10, 2022 in Kansas City, Missouri. Jones was called for a penalty for roughing the passer. (Photo by David Eulitt/Getty Images)
By Kalyn Kahler
Oct 13, 2022

In a video sent by the NFL’s officiating office to all 32 NFL clubs Wednesday, Perry Fewell, the NFL’s senior vice president of officiating administration, defended Monday’s controversial roughing the passer call on Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones. A source who received the video sent it to The Athletic. The video showed a replay of Jones strip-sacking Raiders quarterback Derek Carr while Fewell narrated.

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“The Kansas City defender executes his rush plan in his effort to sack the quarterback,” Fewell said in the video. “He lands with his full body weight on the drive to the ground. A quarterback in the pocket, in a passing posture, gets full protection until he can defend himself. This was a properly called foul for roughing the passer.”

In the video, Fewell did not mention the fact that the ball was loose when Jones swatted it out of Carr’s hand, or that Jones can be seen using his left hand to brace himself as he goes to the ground. Jones told reporters that everything happened so fast in the moment, but he did try to brace himself on the way down.

“I’m not saying the ref is wrong, but I’m just saying those situations can affect the game tremendously,” Jones said. “Especially, in the playoffs, a critical situation like that, a game-changing play, it can affect the whole (expletive) game. Excuse my language but we just have to take initiative as a league and see what we can do better.”

“The quarterback is in the pocket and he’s in a passing posture,” referee Carl Cheffers explained to ESPN’s Adam Teicher in the postgame pool report. “He gets full protection of all the aspects of what we give the quarterback in a passing posture. So, when he was tackled, my ruling was the defender landed on him with full body weight. The quarterback is protected from being tackled with full body weight. My ruling was roughing the passer for that reason.”

The league’s video included eight examples of legal quarterback hits, this time narrated by Stephen Bowen, former NFL defensive end and current director of game initiatives for the NFL. Bowen highlighted Raiders defensive end Maxx Crosby for two plays from the same game.

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In the first example, Bowen says Crosby “does a great job of wrapping up his quarterback and doesn’t do anything unnecessary to jeopardize his team.” In the second example, he says Crosby “does a great job on the power rush on this play and doesn’t unnecessarily throw the quarterback to the ground.”

Bowen then pointed out two plays from Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald as prime examples of legal hits. One was a strip sack like Jones, but in this case, the defender, Donald, stays upright and doesn’t take Cowboys quarterback Cooper Rush to the ground while he swipes the ball. “He swipes the hands, causes the sack, causes the fumble, and doesn’t unnecessarily throw the quarterback to the ground,” Bowen said.

Bowen then highlighted Cowboys linebacker Micah Parsons for “coming to balance when he gets to the quarterback” and doing “a great job of not trying to punish the quarterback when he gets to the ground.”

The video then cuts to Fewell, who explains two roughing the passer “body weight” calls, the first of which is Browns defensive tackle Taven Bryan landing on top of Panthers quarterback Baker Mayfield as he drives him backward. Fewell said Bryan made “no attempt to roll to the side or two-hand brace.”

The second and final example is the Chiefs’ play on Monday night. The video did not include the first controversial roughing the passer call of the weekend when Falcons defensive tackle Grady Jarrett wrapped up Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady in what looked to be a textbook tackle and not an example of the “body weight” issue.

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On Wednesday, ESPN’s Adam Schefter tweeted that a league source told him: “There is no backing down on enforcing rules that are in place to protect the health and safety of players, including quarterbacks, who by rule are considered defenseless players when they are in a passing posture.”

Per NFL.com and NFL Research, there have been 27 flags for roughing the passer through the five weeks of this season, with 25 accepted penalties, which is down from last year, when there were 51 called and 48 accepted through Week 5.

This video that outlined roughing the passer calls for the 32 NFL teams reinforced that officials will be calling it a penalty if a defender takes a quarterback to the ground but does not roll to the side on the way down, or brace himself with both hands or his knees so as not to land on the quarterback. The officiating office’s explanation and defense of the Monday night call, though incomplete, proves that “body weight” calls are still going to be judgment-based and that this will be a theme of the season — even if it’s a confusing one for teams and players to understand.

(Photo: David Eulitt / Getty Images)

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Kalyn Kahler

Kalyn Kahler is a senior writer for The Athletic covering the NFL. She previously worked as a staff writer for Defector and at Sports Illustrated, where she worked her way up from editorial assistant and personal assistant to Peter King. She is a graduate of Northwestern University.