
The NFL’s handling of roughing the passer calls became a hotly-discussed topic after Week 5 of the 2022 season.
A fourth-quarter sack for the Atlanta Falcons and a momentum-shifting strip sack for the Kansas City Chiefs were both called back for extremely questionable roughing the passer penalties.
The majority of the NFL world was angered by these calls, but ESPN analyst Mike Greenberg feels the league was spot on with their decisions.
Greenberg believes player protection is more important than backlash from controversial calls.
“I’m going to say something I have a fear is going to be extremely unpopular. But the NFL is doing the exact right thing with these calls,” Greenberg said. “Two weeks ago, the National Football League had a moment that everyone in the world saw on a Thursday night where one of their highest-profile players, Tua Tagovailoa, was lying in a fetal position and we all saw how incredibly frightening that was. The following morning, Get Up spent two hours talking about it, it was the highest-rated Friday we’ve had the entire season, and Robin Roberts is talking about it on Good Morning America. This Monday, after the Brady play, we spent five minutes talking about what we thought was a bad call and Robin Roberts was talking about the midterm elections.
“That’s what the NFL wants. They’re much better off with a call we deem bad than having moments like the one with Tua. And if it means they have to err on the side of caution and every now and again it leads to a flag we don’t like, that is actually the right thing to do.”
We’ll see if this week’s outrage causes the NFL to rethink its roughing the passer criteria.