It Appears That Tackling The Quarterback Is Now Illegal In The NFL
Look, I know that this is a new rule designed for gigantic freakishly athletic defenders to avoid chokeslamming QBs through the turf or putting all their weight on a QB’s body and sentencing fans to watching guys like Brett Hundley play football instead of Aaron Rodgers. And I also get that this is the preseason and refs are going to call things tight in order to potentially condition players to get used to how the rules SHOULD work. But this still stinks.
Calling a penalty by the way a defender or QB hits the ground in a play that is over so fast is crazy. What if a QB stays on the ground like he’s dead or acts like he’s on fire like Neymar? Will a late flag come out and give the offense 15 yards and a first down for a good acting job? Even this Jets defender knew he was fucked because his momentum and a little thing called gravity were about to cost his team 15 yards.
After everything we have seen from the refs over the years, I don’t think we can trust that an official is going to make the right call for how hard a defender threw down a quarterback since every NFL play is over in a cocaine heartbeat. Again, I get trying to make the game safer and also significantly less shitty by keeping the QB safe. I appreciate this as a fan of a team with a two-time Super Bowl MVP quarterback, even if he only misses games because he has an incompetent coach that would bench him for Geno Smith. But it seems like we are headed to the point where QBs will be 2 hand touch instead of tackle. And yes I realize how much this makes me sound like an old cigar smoking Journo wearing a brown hat with a card that says Press on it. I hate it too. But I really hate how this new rule, the helmet rule, and whatever the fuck the catch rule is now will likely be called this season. Not that I am going to do anything about it. I will watch every NFL game I possibly can and let my fantasy team consume my life until Christmas. I hate that this league owns all of our souls. Fuck Goodell.