KJ Henry was active for the first time in his NFL career Sunday, and he even got a strip-sack…but it was taken away, as he was called for a roughing the passer penalty that was ticky-tack at best, and egregiously wrong at worst.
Sad, and as JP Finlay said, referees don’t have to speak to the media and answer for their actions, but the Pro Football Writers’ Association is allowed to ask for a pool reporter to ask questions – which the beat did, and Nicki Jhabvala got to do the interview where she asked referee Adrian Hill about the call.
“I was the calling official and the call was roughing the passer due to full body weight,” Hill told Jhabvala. “The ruling on the field was that the defender came down with forcible contact, chest to chest. He didn't perform one of those acts to remove most of that body weight, a gator roll or a clear to the side when he was coming in. He came down directly with force on the player, so the category was full body weight.”
“He said chest-to-chest…he hit him in the back, didn’t he?” Brian Mitchell asked in response. “That’s why people think it could be an inside thing that when they say stuff is fixed; it ain't the players.”
Even better, when Finlay read the answer where Hull explains a Gator roll, BMitch pulled up the footage to show the guys in the studio that’s exactly what happened.
“It's really hard to get sacks, for young players to make an impact. Henry did all of that, and to call that…it's a blindside sack. What the hell is he supposed to do?” JP asked.
Landfill tried to explain the “Gator roll,” and JP was incredulous about that before reading more:
“The ruling on the field was that the defender came down with forcible contact, chest to chest…he had his back to him, it wasn't chest to chest!” JP said.
“The man obviously didn't look at the play, and that right there makes me start believing the people that tell you that the NFL has a script,” BMitch replied. “Because that sounds like he was supposed to hit him in the chest. So he thought he was gonna hit in his chest and he was ready to throw that flag anyway.”
Landfill thinks the rule is ‘absolute nonsense’ and JP called it ‘such junk,’ wondering how the defense is, y’know, supposed to play defense.
“We live in a world of hyperbole where everybody goes out of their way to say the most outlandish things,” JP said, “but that said, I legitimately believe yesterday was the worst roughing the passer call we've seen. Ever!”
“I sent my tweet straight to the NFL, I ws so pissed at that one,” BMitch replied. “It’s pathetic that in this day and age we have people throwing something like that. First of all, once a person hits a person, you don't control how hard you go down. KJ hit him and continued moving forward, so he just like skimmed across the body. That's not landing your full weight on someone. You describe it as chest to chest when he hit the guy in his back. So obviously you don't know what a damn chest is! That referee, I would love somebody to go check out, he probably has an account and he had some money on the game.”
Good thing, the guys agreed, the Commanders won…but take a listen to their whole convo above!
