The controversial Chris Jones roughing the passer penalty provided an opportunity for the man himself to preach about the need for a rule change.
Chances are you heard about what happened on Monday Night Football even if you didn’t see the game.
Kansas City Chiefs defensive lineman Chris Jones made a spectacular play to strip sack Derek Carr late in the first half of Monday night’s game. With his team down 17-7, it should have been the type of game-changing play the Chiefs are paying him $60 million guaranteed to make, but referee Carl Cheffers didn’t see it that way.
This was more than just an official making a questionable call from a bad angle, this was without a doubt one of the worst calls in recent memory — and we had the Tom Brady roughing call just 24 hours prior.
Jones was flagged for roughing the passer on a play in which he simply tackled Carr. There’s almost zero wiggle room to argue otherwise, and the call has since been universally condemned as an abhorrent misreading of the rule.
Just look:
The defense of the penalty was that Jones put too much of his body weight on Carr which resulted in the penalty. Replays showed that was a total crock of crap and that Jones had even gone as far as to put his hand out to support his weight to avoid such a call.
Not for nothing, but the play changed from being a normal sack to fumble protocol seeing as Carr had the ball stripped from him.
To his credit, by making the call Cheffers did something that no one thought would be possible in this country anymore: uniting Americans together as one.
After the game Jones commented on the penalty and presented a passionate case for how to fix it.
“If we are going to keep calling roughing the passer at this high of a velocity, then we have to be able to view it in the booth to make sure because sometimes looks can be deceiving,” Jones said after the game.
“From the ref’s point of view it probably looked like that initially, but when you look at the replay it’s a whole different thing,” Jones said. “If we’re able to view it in the booth and the refs are able to get a second look because it’s happening so fast maybe we can change things.
Because now it’s getting absurd, now it’s causing teams games.”