Stop Throwing Flags That Require You To Defy Physics You Buttholes
This comic has been in my unused draft ideas folder for…probably 4 years. When I pulled it up, it was labeled #303. I’ve had this comic in the back of my mind for ages. Somehow I just never finished it. Another more timely idea always popped up. I’m glad I never used it, because it feels more relevant now than it ever was before. We have a serious roughing the passer problem. The flags will not stop. They keep getting worse.
It’s almost funny. In the preseason we were all extremely worried about the new lowering the helmet rule. Now that the season has started that rule has not been an issue at all. Instead we have come to a heated conflict over something most of us have been annoyed by for years. Roughing the passer has always been a questionable penalty. When I conceived this comic it was because I was getting sick of seeing flags thrown for hits that the defender clearly had zero chance of pulling up on. These guys are taught to rush as fast as possible to the QB and if the QB manages to get the pass off just a bit earlier all that momentum is supposed to just…stop? Do NFL rulemakers understand physics? Do refs?
It’s such an impossible situation. If you get there at the exact right time before the throw, your hit can generate a strip sack, one of the biggest game breaking plays out there. Yet if you are a fraction too late you might actually cause your team to get penalized 15 yards. It’s so stupid. I understand the need to protect the QB since the QB is kind of defenseless but there has to be some sort of understanding. Roughing used to be reserved for more obvious crap, like after the speed of the play has died down a bit because the ball is gone and the guy still decides to go for it. Like a second’s worth of time usually. It was a rare call.
As of 2018 it has officially devolved into anything that looks slightly rough on the QB. Clay Matthews had a clean sack of Alex Smith this weekend. It might have been the cleanest, most textbook sack I’ve seen all year. It was perfect. It wasn’t even a hit after Alex threw the ball. It was a sack. He never even threw the ball. He didn’t lower his helmet, he led with his shoulder, he hit him on the pads…there was nothing illegal about it even in today’s narrow viewpoints. He still got flagged. Mike McCarthy rightfully completely lost his shit. Anyone watching that game who wasn’t a Skins fans was losing their shit. If a fucking textbook sack is a penalty what the hell are defenders supposed to do?
(Side note, I know the hit I’m talking about was a sack and the comic depicts a thrown ball, but reminder this comic was already half done when I made it and was hoping to make a larger point because most of the calls aren’t quite this garbage)
It feels like there is a good chance this becomes a “fail mary” type of play that gets change moving because people are rightfully pissed off about this. One day later JPP got a roughing call for slightly slapping Big Ben on the head. Ben, a guy who constantly shrugs off hits like he’s made of concrete, felt the slap and then did a soccer-worthy flop. He got the call. If that doesn’t set a tremendously dangerous precedent then I don’t know what could. If you have QBs who know they could take a dive and get a cheap 15 yard call, why wouldn’t they do it? Kickers learned it. Now QBs can do it too. It’s disgusting.
Of course, there is also zero consistency to the call from play to play, game to game. It’s all up to the ref to decide now. Which just shows how garbage it is.
Like the excessive celebration penalties, it feels like the NFL just made things worse and worse and is now facing an absolute outrage because they kept trying to fix it the wrong way. Hopefully this nonsense gets enough people mad that refs start to pull back a little bit. Safety is important but it needs to be regulated in a way that makes sense. Fix it, buttholes.
DAVE COMPUTER UPDATE: WE’RE BACK ONLINE BITCHES! There will be a comic tomorrow and Friday since my schedule was all warped by the timing. Dunno if they will be checkdowns yet. One should be full at least. Many thanks to Spilly, who graciously lent me his old video card. He also trolled me by shipping it wrapped in a Broncos flag. So if you ever wanted to see me hold a Broncos flag…here ya go.
It was really ridiculous in the Raiders/Dolphins game, because one of Miami’s players actually tore his ACL trying not to land on Carr during a sack. Then, on Miami’s next series, a Raiders’s player hits Tannehill in the exact same manner and gets flagged for it. Very stupid (and inconsistent) penalty.
Broncos swag is never trolling. It is providing you an opportunity to embrace glory and righteousness.
I like how the ref’s mustache vanishes on the last panel. Made me giggle.
I think that’s his mouth closing.
The NFL isn’t concerned about actual safety, just making sure they can put the stars on the field. If this is the future, they need to invest in QB training in college so the back ups are good enough to keep their product marketable.
The rule sure seems to be set to agree with your hover text, “Touching the Passer”. Touch a kicker, throw a flag. Now it’s the same way with QB’s almost. The fact that this was originally labelled as #303 shows how long this has been an issue and how completely incapable they are of fixing it. Also, a hug THANK YOU TO SPILLY! Nice touch with the Broncos flag.
It’s almost funny
galactic emphasis on “almost”
and then did a soccer-worthy flop
to be fair that’s men’s soccer only, what a fucking joke that sport is
Thank you for pointing that out. Of course there is always Marta…
At least it’s like football if you know what I mean.
Wait, does women’s soccer not have that crap? I don’t like the sport even without the stupid quirks of pro play so I never thought to pay attention to the women’s side of the game. If there’s no flopping in women’s soccer I can at least respect the players for their athletic ability even if I don’t like the sport, unlike men’s where the only proper way to talk about it is to mock it.
Nope. There’s not that great an investment to protect by diving in women’s soccer. With a $37.8K pay ceiling in the National Women’s Soccer League, one could get a “normal” job for a similar rate and not be subject to getting their legs chewed up by grass, miles of running per night and other players’ tackling. Money can’t buy a love of the game for that rate.
this is my all-time favorite example https://imgur.com/gallery/nLjZ6A1
Holy moly that is the most ridiculous reaction to someone touching a guys neck in the history of the world.
So at this point, the emphasized roughing rule has:
1. Cost one team two wins and likely cost a second team a third due to bad calls; and
2. Directly caused a season ending injury to a defensive lineman.
But hey, at least the QBs aren’t getting bruised.
Not on contact injuries at least.
Think just think of that terrible injustice done to Ben’s helmet!
This may look like a normal comic, but you drew Alex Smith throwing the ball, so it’s actually a Checkdown.
I wish I could frame this comment
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This is gold. Pure gold. Nothing in this day has given me so much joy.
Hey Alex Smith has gotten better than when he was in San Fran. He doesn’t check down like he used to and is bombing it a lot more.
The problem is that QBs used to protect themselves when they were about to get crushed but now they’re all trying to make the highlight reel by “extending the play” or “standing in and making the throw” even in impossible situations. QBs are defenseless of their own free will. It’s like some people’s argument that we should banish helmets – make roughing the passer only on blind-side hits and tell QBs to go down when 300lbs of dude has them dead to rights
Pretty much this. They are taught to try to make the play and if they can’t, draw the flag. That seems to be it now. Hack-A-Shaq, LeFlop, and now you can’t play two hand touch football with the QB.
This is all that pussy qb with the glass shoulder from Green Bays’ fault!
Honestly it’s Brady and Manning’s fault for complaining so much but yeah, Rodgers dying every other year has made it worse
little ironic that it has turned around and bitten his own team the hardest so far
Perhaps the Packers don’t have a golden horseshoe, but rather a Monkey’s Paw
… with fro-yo, right?
Yeah that 2008 lost Brady season started this whole shitstorm. As a saints fan I’ve seen us benefit more than any other team just because e Brees’s “sack zone” is extremely small. Like how do you not hit his head?
There was also the time when the Colts whined about the Pats defensive backs raping their receivers in the playoffs which led to rule change made that led to Peyton’s 2004 season (only to get raped by the Pats defense once again anyway). Then there’s what happened to Carson Palmer against the Steelers.
Don’t be surpised if in decades from now, we’ll be saying “In my days, the defenders can actually touch quarterbacks.”
Yeah the “Ty Law” rule. What a complete sham that became. God forbid a player get three ints in the post season.
What an internet badass. I bet you would be entirely unphazed by a 300+ pound ball of muscles driving into your body at full tilt.
This is not about how my body would be broken by one of these 300 pound monsters. It is about the NFL putting defensive players in positions that put their careers at risk for the sake of a qb. You don’t see these rules when tackling running backs or receivers. We already have a defensive player tear his acl while trying to avoid putting his weight on the qb. It is unnatural and obsurd
Hello Roger Goodell.
Finally, seriously who the HFIL came up with that new roughing the passer rule anyway? At this point even toughing the QB will get the defender arrested for rape.
*touching
Toughing works
Still, too flattering.
Rushing the passer. 15 yards. Automatic first down.
4 years later and this comic is just as relevant now as it was then.