Last week’s edition of After Further Review didn’t have many examples of “nothing the passer” arising from Week 11. For Week 12, AFR included more than a few instances of contact with the passer drawing a foul when it shouldn’t have done so.
The full discussion is attached. The trend continues for officials to throw flags for something less than actual and legitimate roughing the passer. (With the exception of the inexplicable failure by referee Brad Allen to call roughing against the Saints when defensive lineman Christian Ringo dove into the legs of Bills quarterback Josh Allen.)
The problem, for most part, has become a complete lack of consistency. A program of full-time officiating, with hours spent in meetings that focus on what is and isn’t roughing the passer, could help create more consistency. Until that happens, the league should consider a radical concept about which I used to joke. Currently, I’m only partially joking.
Given that plenty of officials are interpreting and applying roughing the passer as if it’s roughing the kicker, why not just make the roughing the passer rule match the roughing the kicker rule? Seriously, if simply hitting the quarterback after the ball has left his hand constitutes a foul, roughing the passer and roughing the kicker already have become the same thing.
Of course, not everyone is enforcing the rule that way. But that’s a huge part of the problem. Everyone needs to know what the rule is, and everyone needs to know how the rule will be applied.
Short of demanding consistent application of the rule as written, the NFL could streamline and simplify the rule. That would make it easier to achieve consistency. By making roughing the passer and roughing the kicker the same, the NFL would go a long way toward achieving consistency -- and a long way toward making sure every player, coach, fan, and media member knows what the rule is.
