NFL analysts, fans and players have complained about the league’s roughing the passer calls over the past few days.
ESPN’s Mike Greenberg, however, is fine with the way the NFL goes out of its way to protect its quarterbacks. He explained why on Get Up.
“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 Robyn Roberts was 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 Robyn 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 than the one with Tua.”
Unsurprisingly, football fans strongly disagree with Greenberg’s take.
“Of course a media guy is only looking through at this through a media lens,” one fan said. “Plus, this is a really stupid argument.”
“This is really dumb,” another fan wrote. “Yeah, protect your players. They are doing the right thing there but that has nothing to do with TERRIBLE officiating that swings games.”
“This is why you can’t ever take these talk shows seriously,” a third fan said. “Clear change in messaging just shows me that they got a call from the NFL. Also, it’s the Dolphins fault for putting Tua out there and now they are having the defenses literally penalized for it.”
Although there are plenty of conversations about this topic being had this week, the NFL won’t make any changes to how it calls roughing the passer.
A league source told ESPN’s Adam Schefter that “there is no backing down on enforcing rules that are in place to protect the health and safety of players, including quarterbacks, who by rule are considered defenseless players when they are in a passing posture.”