Another week of the 2022 NFL season has passed and officiating is at the center of the discussion.
This time it’s a controversial roughing the passer penalty on Kansas City Chiefs DT Chris Jones — one that negated a strip sack and fumble recovery. The 70,000-plus fans at Arrowhead Stadium were fired up over the penalty, chanting “bullshit” and “refs you suck” on multiple occasions. The penalty was discussed during the broadcast, in the postgame shows and all across social media during and after the game.
At the podium following the Week 5 win, Chiefs HC Andy Reid got the first crack at speaking on the penalty. He didn’t go into too much detail other than to say that he felt Jones forced a fumble and got the football.
“Yeah, well, I mean I thought he got the ball,” Reid said. “So, I mean that’s what I thought. But that’s their job. They do that.”
Reid was seen heated on the sideline with referee Carl Cheffers before halftime.
“I mean, listen, it’s an emotional game,” Reid continued. “So, what I thought, I guess, wasn’t right. But it is what it is. The guys felt the same way I did, so I think it gave us a little juice.”
As for what could change moving forward, Reid expects that the league will find a happy medium between protecting the quarterback and letting players play.
“Yeah listen, I’m in the league, I’m on a couple of committees there, so I understand protecting the quarterback — that’s important. It is important. There’s a fine line, we just got to sort that out. But these guys — I mean they worked their butt(s) off to do a good job for us out here. And the league
spends time doing it and looking at it. Sometimes there’s a point where you got to let guys play and we just got to find where that happy medium is.”
Reid stopped taking questions about the penalty there, suggesting the media was trying to get him fined. The locker room, however, wasn’t quite so careful to hold their tongues after the game.
“Oh man, it was a bad call,” L’Jarius Sneed said. “Chris (Jones) made a great play. Got the fumble and all. They took it from him and that was a bad call.”
“Yeah, I saw it. I thought it was a bad call, to be honest,” JuJu Smith-Schuster said. “He had the sack, the ball came out. He got the ball back. We should have had that one.”
Jones also spoke to reporters in the locker room. He understood the call and what it must have looked like to Cheffers in real-time, but he was insistent that the play wasn’t a penalty. He believes that the replay shows that fact.
“From the ref’s point of view, it probably looked like (roughing the passer) initially, but when you look at the replay, it’s a whole different story,” Jones said in the locker room following the game. “But I think now, to evolve roughing the passer and protecting the quarterback in this league, we’ve got to be able to look at roughing the passer in the booth. You take a look at the Grady Jarrett situation — of course I saw that one — and what type of situation that was in the game. That was a third-down stop also. If referees can get a second look in the booth because it’s happening so fast, maybe we can change that. Now it’s getting absurd, it’s costing teams games.”
The Chiefs are lucky that this penalty didn’t cost them the game.
As for Jones’ assertion that replay review would have revealed something different, Cheffers has a different interpretation. He maintains he got the call right.
“The quarterback is in the pocket and he’s in a passing posture,” Cheffers said, via the 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.”
Cheffers added that even with the fumble, Carr was afforded the protection of a passer. He said even if the play was reviewable, the call would have stood as roughing the passer. What Cheffers didn’t acknowledge was that Jones strived to brace his fall with his arms, something that should have negated the penalty call per the NFL’s rulebook.
Either way, Jones says he doesn’t want an explanation from Cheffers. He insists on the NFL looking into how roughing the passer is officiated as they did with pass interference and make the penalty reviewable.
“There’s no need for an explanation,” Jones said. “What am I going to go up to (Carl Cheffers) and say, ‘How should I tackle? How should I not roll on him?’ I’m 325 pounds. What do you want me to do? What do you want me to do? I’m running full speed trying to get the quarterback. I hit the ball. I brace my hands. What do you want me to do? I think now it’s like taking the initiative to look at roughing the passer as a league like they did pass interference. I think that’s the next step we’re going to have to take as a league.”
We’ll see if the backlash from Monday night and Sunday’s game between the Falcons and Bucs is big enough for the NFL to reassess how they officiate roughing the passer penalties. It’d be a pretty radical move for the league to make any in-season adjustments.
There was also one more person to weigh in on the penalty — Raiders QB Derek Carr. According to KC Star beat reporter Vahe Gregorian, Jones spoke with Carr after the game.
Asked Chris Jones about speaking with Carr after the game: We're friends. That's my guy. Heck of a quarterback. Adds, "He told me he didn't know how that got called." Says they laughed about it.
— Vahe Gregorian (@vgregorian) October 11, 2022
If the quarterback who this call is made to protect thinks the called penalty is a joke perhaps Jones has a point about the necessity of replay review.
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