Micah Parsons has had enough. It’s been 30-plus quarters since the NFL’s preeminent pass rusher has seen a holding call made against an opponent trying to block him. Things haven’t changed in their Week 16 game against the Miami Dolphins.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, now he’s getting hit with roughing the passer penalties when he clearly is within the rules with his hit late in the second quarter on Tua Taglovailoa. The Cowboys’ star came in from the blindside and hit the Dolphins QB in the back a split second after it was released. Pass rushers are given two steps towards the quarterback as long as they don’t strike them in the head or take them to the ground in an egregious fashion.
Parsons erupted at the call, the frustration of the one-sided nature of their calls clearly reaching the boiling point. He had to be backed off the referee by teammate DeMarcus Lawrence.
The call, on third down with under a minute remaining, gave the Dolphins a new set of downs and they scored a touchdown a few plays later to take the lead. Cowboys and national Twitter were besides themselves at the call.
Earlier in the game, the Cowboys were the benefactors to a questionable roughing call on Dolphins DT Christian Wilkins, but that was in the shadow of their own goal line and clearly wouldn’t have the same impact as this call did on the scoring.
Warning, some tweets contain NSFW language.