Roughing the Passer

[Sir Purrcival]

I'm currently watching the Hamilton - Toronto tilt and it is in the 4th Q.

This is a topic that has been bothering me for awhile. Hamilton just took a a Roughing the Passer call which took away a Ham. pick and ultimately led to a Tor. touchdown. It was a call made on coaches challenge. I understand the need to protect the QB but the call in question was very marginal. It wasn't late, it wasn't dirty, the point of contention was that the helmet made contact with the faceguard of Bethel Thompson. Am I alone in thinking that the pendulum has swung too far in protecting the QB? It was just a football play and it seems very likely with a face guard jutting out like it does, that contact with the helmet is going to happen on just about every play where you tackle face to face. As it currently stands, it has changed the game significantly on what appears to be a very cheesy penalty. I am of the opinion that they need to lighten up on this a bit. There are too many calls like this that happen that aren't calls on the field but change under super slo mo.

[B.C.FAN]

I’ve accepted the rule. It’s clear: You can’t hit the QB above the shoulders or at or below the knees. The rule is enforced consistently, at least on review if it’s missed initially. The game has changed to protect the health of QBs and others. Defensive players have to adapt.

Rule 7, Article 5 — Roughing The Passer
Because the act of passing puts the passer in a particularly vulnerable position to injury, special rules against roughing the passer apply. Once the ball is released, defensive players must avoid all unnecessary contact with the passer. A player shall be penalized for any act of Unnecessary Roughness to the passer, including but not limited to:

a. Contacting the passer in an unnecessary manner, including stuffing him to the ground, violently throwing him to the ground, and landing on him with most of the defender's weight,
b. Any blow above the passer's shoulder,
c. All rushing defenders must attempt to avoid forcibly hitting a passer in the pocket, at or below the knees, either if their path to the passer was unrestricted, or if they are coming off a blocker,
d. Attacking the passer who, after releasing the ball, is either standing still or fading backwards and is obviously out of the play and remains out of the play,
e. When the quarterback slides feet first, all unnecessary contact must be avoided. The slide must be done in a timely manner to allow the defence to avoid such contact.
f. Contacting the passer if either the initial source of contact, or primary source of contact, is the defender's helmet.

[Sir Purrcival]

It was a very weak call. The tackler didn't even land on the guy. He was trying to get to the QB, the QB was standing in trying to get the ball out. There did not appear to be any attempt to hit him in the head. Are you supposed to.make sure that your head isn't in line with his when you tackle? Hard to do in a 3 second window. The official was watching, he didn't call it. I know tbe rule, I just wonder if it has gone too far.

[David]

Seemed pretty clear cut to me. Ja'Gared Davis came up and in on MBT making contact with MBT's helmet, the force of which drove him to the ground. I was only surprised that the Argos needed a challenge flag for it to be called.

Put it this way, I've seen far less egregious hits to quarterbacks that have been called Roughing the Passer.


DH

[Sir Purrcival]

I guess that is the problem with all of this stuff. People tend to see it differently. To me it was just a football play. I didn't get any sense that he was trying to make head contact. Just happened to work out that way. The impact on the game was oversized. I had no skin in this game, just watching it for entertainment. After that, the whole tenor shifted. I'm pretty confident if that call doesn't happen, the result ends differently. It was a hard fought game with lots of sacks and hits and this just seemed like the others. I used to not like the missed calls of the Refs, but now it seems that anytime you have a big play, you are holding your breath to see if one team is going to throw the challenge flag just in case they can make something stick. I would venture to say that there is probably a penalty of some kind on every play. I would also suggest that those kinds of head shots happen all over the field all game. I would like to think if the rule is about player safety that such shots would weigh equally regardless of the position but it doesn't seem so. I guess my reaction was that I was interested in the outcome right up until that point and thereafter I wasn't really. One of the most exciting plays during a game is the sack and it seems that over time, we take more and more of it away for less and less. I don't want anyone to get hurt unnecessarily but being a QB comes with risks and this just seemed like one of those moments. It negated a terrific effort both to bring pressure and the resultant interception and ultimately changed the outcome of the game. I don't like cheap shots but I also don't like the coaches challenge when the purpose isn't to correct some egregious error but really to try and use it to overturn a play that hurt your team. We seem to have replaced one form of frustration (the so-called missed call) with another (the hyper-sensitive, super slowed down call where you look for the slightest infraction).

[Hambone]

Kinda like those inadvertent high sticking calls in the NHL. The onus is on the player to be in control of his stick.

As much as we may not like how some of the raw physicality has been removed from the game the rule changes have been born out of necessity. Like it or not the CFL, and NFL for that matter, are QB driven leagues. The QBs are the stars and meal tickets for not just their respective team's hopes but for their fans as well. All teams' playoff and championship hopes rest on the physical well-being of the QBs. It just seemed that in recent years the odds of starting QBs playing most, if not all, of a season relatively healthy had greatly diminished. A team seeing its playoff aspirations vanish with a season ending injury to a star QB half way through the year will also absorb a hit at the gate.

I don't know why QBs seem to be more fragile than in years gone by. With things like flak jackets they are more protected at least in the torso. Helmet technology is vastly improved. Maybe it's the pure size and speed of today's defensive players? Maybe it's that they often tend to attack in numbers with speed and blunt force as opposed to trying to actually wrap the QB up?

[Dusty]

I do not recall the Roughing the Passer call, but I was very surprised that the field goal at the end of the first half was not overturned. When it was kicked, I did not think it went through the uprights. When I saw the replay, I still did not think it went through the uprights.

I did not watch the half-time show so no idea if there was a definitive look at the play which confirmed it was a legit 3 point score. Very important in that the final score was only 1 point difference.

Has there been any word on that play?

[David]

Anyone in a review booth who upheld that (to me) obvious wide left field goal attempt would have to be seen as "Argo-friendly." That's all I can really say about that. It looked wide when Bede kicked it and wide when they replayed multiple endzone angles.

That to me was a more obvious influence on the final score. The 3 points gave the Argos momentum (and life) going into the half.


DH

[Sir Purrcival]

The commentators did question it but couldn't tell from their vantage point if the ball had curved around the post.. I thought it was out too but it looked to me best case was that it would have hit upright if it had been low enough.