Loving The Passer
This is not the first time I’ve complained about this, and frustratingly, I doubt it will be the last. This has been an ongoing problem for years, and they simply won’t address it.
A surreal thing happened this week. On Sunday, the Falcons were hit by probably one of the worst calls of the year and another prized trophy in the case of bullshit roughing calls. It took a huge momentum swing away from a surging team on the verge of an incredible comeback and stopped it cold because the league had to protect the golden boy. Well, golden middle-aged man. Brady has always gotten the benefit of these calls but this one especially hurt as it felt like the Falcons were on the verge of something incredible against a Bucs team that is struggling to keep itself afloat. Plus, it was totally a bullshit call. The call was made by Jerome Boger’s ref squad, a squad that has been notoriously bad in recent years and made a horrible call just the previous week in Ravens/Bills. The call was easily the Outrage Of The Week ™.
So naturally, I was also pissed and came up with this fairly obvious idea that many jokesters have also made. So there I am, sketching out this comic, getting the layout finished, moving panels, figuring it out, when another horrible roughing call, one that was arguably even worse, occurs on Chris Jones after strip sacking Derek Carr. The call was egregious for numerous reasons (my favorite reason will always be that it’s kind of impossible to defy physics). But even then, Jones actually did brace his arm to reduce his body weight, and his other arm had the ball in it. Garbage call, essentially gifted the Raiders 3 points, and the immediate immense backlash clearly rattled the referee crew because they then made several bad makeup calls in KC’s favor and sounded terrified when talking.
A lot of folks have speculated that it is a response to the Tua situation. In the Brady sack, I can almost see the logic. Grady Jarrett, by virtue of the angle he takes, kind of whips Brady around while taking him to the ground. Could he have not done that? Maybe, or eased up on it, but not without risk of Brady getting away and he still might have gotten called regardless. I hate this because frankly, if this is in response to Tua, then these tackles should be illegal against everyone, not just golden middle age man. Every player is at risk of a concussion if they get whipped to the ground, and this happens to receivers, runningbacks, return men, you name it. You rarely see those roughing penalties get called on people besides QBs. But also, it shouldn’t be illegal in the first place. Jarett’s whip was far less violent than other examples in the genre, and the calls are still woefully inconsistent between QBs. Poor Cam. I’ll always think of poor Cam.
Considering it took the refs a 5-minute discussion to actually throw the flag and commit to the penalty, I am once again begging the NFL to institute the AAF’s Sky Judge. What a brilliant concept that has just been cast aside. Yeah, refs have a hard job. They are going to mess up in the speed of the moment. That’s why you make it one dude’s job to analyze the replays in quick real-time and make a final call. Let the damn refs use technology to see if they got something wrong in the moment. It might not have spared Jarrett, but it probably would have spared Jones, considering that everyone and their mother who watched the replay, announcers included, were fuming about how bad a call it was. A sky judge would have seen it. PUT IN A SKY JUDGE.
I can’t wait for nothing to come of this. That’s my favorite part. Love to scream into the void.
Part of the reason why I think nothing ever comes out of these sorts of incidents whenever the refs massively blow a game is because of the fact that rather than actually addressing the issue at hand, fans and the media alike would rather turn it into some big conspiracy which almost instantly derails the conversation. It’s no longer, “Why does the NFL continue to do nothing about the officials constantly inserting themselves into tight games at their most crucial juncture?” but instead, “Well, does Tom Brady ACTUALLY benefit from roughing the passer???” with every Brady fan and even some media members somehow having a million stats available to show that he’s like middle of the pack at best when it comes to drawing that type of penalty.
And if it’s not that, it’s those same fans turning it into a pissing match over who got screwed over worse with every single officiating screwup suddenly becoming relevant. Bucs fans bring up a blatant missed DPI the play before. Falcons fans bring up a terrible defensive holding call earlier in the drive. Oh, well Vita Vea got called for RTP when he got shoved into Marcus Mariota! So on, so forth.
This was my TL on Sunday, and all it shows is that the officials are shockingly terrible at their jobs. This happens every single time the refs drop the ball. Fans start claiming the refs are giving [ insert team/player here ] preferential treatment. Fans of said team/player immediately respond by saying they don’t. Both sides shit up the board for a week until the refs inevitably blow another game we have the exact same conversation again but with a different team. The reality is that this has nothing to do with any player or team. This is purely an issue with the officials and the NFL having zero checks and balances when it comes to stuff like this. The refs can blow a game, shrug their shoulders and be like, “oopsie, jus committed a fucky-wucky uwu” and then go right back to blowing another game like nothing happened.
Until they either add a sky judge like you suggested or start outright punishing refs for egregious calls like this, you’re going to keep seeing it. It just gets old when you see no one talking about that and instead discussing Tom Brady like he even matters here.
I now have the image of Ed Hochuli going “oopsie, jus committed a fucky-wucky uwu” burned into my head….thanks, Stunkei!
Honestly I didn’t care that much about any of this, I just really wanted to slip that line in there. Shameless, I know.
A+ hover text LOL the refs make calls due to their fantasy football teams
ok why?
That’s why they make bad calls so they get fantasy points
I’m fully with you that it’s not about Brady. But as a fan of him (because of his college team, my only true “childhood home team” that I care about), it gets tiring that people seem have to throw in the “Golden Boy” comment every time or scream extra loud when he’s involved. Even though there are just as egregious examples with Derek Carr and Josh Allen within the same week (Josh Allen’s was last Sunday, but still 7 days. Also, isn’t he the Golden Boy this particular season, given all his hype?)
Overall, I, too, care way more about fixing the problem in the obvious way. Yes it’s a judgment call just like pass interference, but just because the NFL managed to screw that up when they tried making it reviewable doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. Both penalties are huge game changers, and often the crowd at home KNOWS almost beyond a doubt what the right call should’ve been with the benefit of HD and replays, while it’s easy for one ref, in real time, to get that wrong. I want to see every play potentially reviewable, AND a Sky Judge. There’s nothing “fun” about the refs deciding the game because they’re human and flawed. That’s not the human element that we watch the games for.
“Goodnight Warren Moon”
Nice work there.
One of the best throwaway gags of the whole comic.
Agreed. *slow clap*
As I have nothing to add to the convo that already hasn’t been said, I’ll just say that I love the book title “Goodnight Warren Moon”
The issue with penalizing the whip-down tackle like in Brady’s and in Tua’s case is that the offensive player initially lands on the defender so they are not actually “down” yet. So, if the defender doesn’t pull them to the ground they can get back up and keep going, and there are not many ways to pull someone who is sitting on top of you to the ground without that whipping motion. If the NFL wants to make those kinds of tackles illegal it has to first reevaluate what is considered “down” for a player. In the meantime, they should really be blowing the whistle to call QB’s down a lot earlier than they are if they really want to “protect” them.
Alt text alternative: Didn’t Kiss Brady on the mouth. 15 yards, automatic first down
The blanket wasn’t ironed enough. No stuffed animal provided. Automatic ejection. Tompa ball on the Atlanta goal line.
What makes this even worse is we already have sky judges. Dean Blandino and the other network former officials do this job it just doesn’t affect the game. The NFL wants the refs to seem perfect and their calls to be immutable, but that already went out the window when the challenge flag was added. They just need to add the sky judge to the official crew and fire Boger
“They deserve every joke and insult thrown their way. Steelers fans especially probably can’t wait. This is worse than Roethlisberger. Roethlisberger was already a Pittsburgh hero before we found out he was a piece of shit. It made sense that Steelers fans would be conflicted and look the other way on Ben, even if it was gross. The Browns traded for the rapist this time. They sought the rapist out. I already feel myself softening towards Pittsburgh. I used to like the Steelers as a kid, and for a while as a teenager. I liked Big Ben and rooted for them against the Seahawks, for The Bus and Troy Polamalu. I was annoyed when they beat the Cardinals in 2008, but that was mostly success fatigue. I didn’t hate the Steelers until they supported Big Ben’s rape redemption tour. Now that Ben is gone, I’ll probably soften to the Steelers to some degree. The Browns have the rapist now. Plus whatever team signs Jameis.
I’ll bring back the hydra this summer. I was optimistic for the Browns, but now I will happily revive that icon of failure and hope it only gets worse as long as he’s there.”-Draw play Dave are you gona like us now Dave
Re Tommy vs. the world: I remember a game last year, a fake field goal attempt where the kicker rolled out, threw the pass (incomplete), and then was absolutely destroyed by the defender. No call. If “rules are rules” they should apply to the 45-year-old golden boy just as much as to the first-pass-I’ve-thrown-as-a-pro kicker.
(Yes I know kickers aren’t real players)
“Goodnight Warren Moon” brought two things to mind.
His side hustle during his playing days was making chocolate chip cookies: https://3downnation.com/2021/02/23/while-starring-at-quarterback-in-the-cfl-and-nfl-warren-moon-ran-a-successful-cookie-business/
He may be a bit of a scumbag: https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2019/08/02/warren-moon-settles-sexual-harassment-case/
(the cookies weren’t that good)
You can claim all you want that there were more BS calls for RtP against Brady, and I wouldn’t have any interest in a disagreement, what I can say is that Brady is pretty middle-of-the-pack when it comes to RtPs sorted by game or by passing attempt.
Statistically Fitzpatrick has drawn the most RTP penalties per game since 2009.
https://www.nflpenalties.com/roughing-the-passer-by-qb.php?view=all
Comic Idea: Dan Snyder is a Team-Controlling Jerkdorkus who Violates His Own Agreement with the NFL
The other storybook hes gonna read is “Everybody Poops (On Odell)”.
So far about one of the only things I can agree with you on. Some of these Roughing the Passer calls are outrageous and need to be looked at and the rule needs to be changed. How it’s written just shows they don’t seem to understand how physics works. Like how leftist show they don’t understand science and biology.