NFL rules analyst: Minkah Fitzpatrick penalty should start a broader discussion on ‘roughing the passer’ calls
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For CBS NFL rules analyst Gene Steratore, the debate surrounding Minkah Fitzpatrick’s roughing the passer penalty Sunday goes beyond “good call/bad call.” Instead, the former NFL referee and Uniontown/Washington, Pa., native says that play should bring up a broader conversation about defining what “roughing the passer” really means.
For those who haven’t seen the play, during the Steelers’ 23-18 victory in Las Vegas on Sunday, Fitzpatrick was flagged on a sack of Raiders quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo. The flag gave the Raiders a fresh set of downs in the red zone instead of facing a third-and-16 from the 24-yard line.
And it sent Steelers fans into a tizzy online because it appeared that any helmet contact between Fitzpatrick and Garoppolo was unavoidable because the QB turned into the contact while bracing himself and Fitzpatrick’s collision with Garoppolo’s helmet was simultaneous with the QB’s shoulder as well.
From Steratore’s point of view, once Garoppolo adjusted his posture when he realized Fitzpatrick was coming unblocked on that blitz to avoid (or absorb) the imminent contact, he then ceased to be a passer and instead became a runner. By extension, did he then forfeit any protections given to a passer in that situation, and can roughing the passer really be called?
“Garoppolo is in a passing posture initially. So he’s a passer. He is afforded all passing protection,” Steratore said Tuesday morning during his weekly appearance on WDVE. “At the moment that the pocket starts to break down, though, now when he tucks that football down from his passing posture … he kind of becomes a runner, right? I mean, he’s not really in this vulnerable standstill passing posture, which provides him the protection that he should be provided in that moment. So it is in that brief second where he goes from being a quarterback in the pocket in the passing posture to being a human being that’s (tucked) the ball now and just trying to protect himself or prepare for impact. Once he does that, then in my definition of that, now you become a runner.”
From there, Steratore says the threshold of what becomes an illegal hit changes.
“So now the only penalty I can really have is if I hit you with the crown of my helmet, which then is just illegal use of the helmet because you’re really not a passer,” Stertaore continued.
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Now, you may then think it’s just a matter of semantics. If it was perceived helmet contact or lowering of/leading with the helmet that caused the official to drop the flag in the first place, then that’s just what the referee would end up calling in the long run anyway.
Maybe.
But Steratore adds that the standard expectation for what would induce such a flag for a player who is a ball carrier versus a player in the act of throwing should be much higher.
“He was hit in the head and neck area. That’s fine (to flag) if he’s a passer. But as a runner, I mean, being hit in the head with the forearm or something as you’re running, that’s football. So that’s where the confusion lies,” Steratore said.
As for the controversial DeMarvin Leal “leveraging” penalty during a Vegas fourth-quarter field-goal attempt, Steratore said that, yes, Leal was guilty of the infraction. The debate can be had, though, if such a minor penalty needed to be called in that important of a situation.
“Technically, it’s a foul,” Steratore said. “But it’s not a ‘water-cooler play’ Monday morning if it’s not called. … Because it doesn’t, to me, fall in that category of ‘is this big enough to do in this game? Was there a material effect on this (play)?’”
Steratore said that if the Steelers ended up blocking that kick while the infraction was being committed, then it’s a different story and throwing the flag would have been an obvious decision because the violation led to a significant change in the result of the play.