Gregg Bell
The News Tribune
RENTON — One of the elite defensive players in the league has a clear opinion on the NFL officiating doubling down to ultra-protect quarterbacks.
Enough is enough.
“I don’t think they can continue to call the things the way they’re calling them. I think it’s kind of becoming really, really hard for the defensive players to figure out a way to hit the quarterback,” Seahawks All-Pro linebacker Bobby Wagner said Wednesday of strict enforcement of Rule 12, section 2, article 9 of the NFL’s rule book.
The league’s game officials told players and coaches during their annual training-camp tours in July and August they were going to penalize a player 15 yards for roughing the passer if he applies all or most of his body weight onto a quarterback and drives him to the ground. People call it a new rule, but in fact it’s been on the league’s books since 1995.
The officials weren’t lying.
Through three weeks of the regular season, there have been 33 fouls for roughing the passer across the league. That’s more than twice the number of such fouls this time last year, when there were 16.
Ten seasons ago, in 2009, there were 69 call roughing-the-passer penalties in the league. For the entire 16-game season. The league is nearly to half that many less than one-quarter the way through this season.
This month officials have been flagging defenders for what used to be just football plays, hits to an otherwise permissible section of a passer’s body to hit, his torso, just as he’s throwing.
The Seahawks haven’t been incensed specifically by any body-weight fouls on them so far this season. They’ve been called for two penalties for roughing the passer, and have been the beneficiaries of one such foul taken by quarterback Russell Wilson through three games.
But Wagner and his teammates, even his coach, have been noticing what been happening to other defensive players across the NFL. In particular, Clay Matthews of the Green Bay Packers and William Hayes of the Miami Dolphins.
Matthews has been become the highest-profile and most incredulous offender of the new rule. He’s been flagged for it in each of Green Bay’s first three games. each time players, fans and analysts across the NFL have howled in protest.
Miami coach Adam Gase said Monday that Hayes sustained his season-ending torn knee ligament in last weekend’s game while trying to not put his body weight on Oakland’s Derek Carr. While trying to avoid getting flagged.
“He was not trying to put body weight on the quarterback, so his foot got caught in the ground,” Gase told South Florida reporters this week.
“You see a guy go down with a serious injury trying to basically do what they want in that rule, which is remove his body,” Wagner said. “But I think it’s something that’s really hard to do because that particular player is like 300 pounds. How do you expect him to stop his momentum when he’s driving somebody or hitting somebody into the ground?
“I don’t know what they’re going to do. I hope they do something. I think it’s kind of being made fun of, just how soft it is for the defense. Like, we can’t touch the quarterback.”
Yes, it is being made fun of.
Even NFL quarterbacks think the rule and enforcement have gotten ridiculous. Packers elite passer Aaron Rodgers has said he thinks the league is “going in the wrong direction” by calling these penalties.
“I understand they’re trying to make the game safer,” Wagner said. “But it’s still a physical game and you have to get the quarterback down. I think there was another play, I think it was in the Green Bay game, where he tried to hit the quarterback but didn’t want to take him down, then the quarterback spins out and goes to get the first down. We kind of don’t know what to do. How you going to hit the quarterback?
“But at the end of the day we’re just going to hit them and see whatever the ref calls. I’m going to hit him. I’m going to hit the quarterback like I’ve always hit him. And whatever happens, happens.”
Will Wagner slow down the next time he’s bearing in on a quarterback, to be safe and mindful of a possible 15-yard foul?
“I’m not,” he said. “I’m going to hit the guy like I normally hit the guy. I’m making sure I’m not hitting him in the head. I’m making sure it’s a good tackle, a tackle that I would make on any other person. And if they call something, they call something. I’ll deal with it then. I haven’t gotten called for it so when it happens to me, if it happens to me (and) hopefully it doesn’t, that’s when I’ll think about it.
“But, you just kind of see it around the league. It’s not something that us as defenders are not used to. They change the rules every single year, make it harder and harder for defensive players every single year. We adjust. We do a great job of adjusting and then they’re like, ‘OK, well let’s do something else.’
“They’re going to run out of things to take away and turn it into different game at that point.”
Sunday, Wagner and the Seahawks will be chasing after Arizona rookie Josh Rosen. The Cardinals’ first-round choice in this spring’s draft is making his first NFL start, replacing struggling and now benched veteran Sam Bradford.
Wagner said he’s not going to be letting up on any quarterback, especially a debuting rookie one, because he fears a flag for even a normal hit.
“Know if they let me blitz, I’d love to hit him,” Wagner said. “And I’ll figure out how to set him down nicely.
“I know you all have seen those videos with the little pillow. You know, maybe I’ll bring a pillow out there.”
