2 minutes of Bruce Arians has already been too much.

Vontae Davis retired at halftime?

Woah.

Yeah he's been a disappointment. Needs to speak louder too.

This was my first Sunday with the Red Zone channel in about 10 years, the last 45 minutes or so of the early games was a very entertaining viewing experience.

I think I have had enough of the Sam Bradford era in Arizona. :(

This really needs a home here.

If he planned to give up when the going got tough he should've just retired when he saw the Bills QB depth chart.

“Are you better than Jameis Winston?”

Ryan Fitzpatrick: “Who the fook is that guy?” pic.twitter.com/19gvdstJmN

— Josiah Johnson (@KingJosiah54) September 16, 2018

Yep. Packers got screwed.

I didn't see the play, but the explanation was he got flagged for lifting him and driving him into the ground.

It was the same exact type of flag that Kendricks got thrown on him earlier in the game and Sheldon Richardson in last weeks game. The quarterbacks might as well just wear flags at this point. Classic textbook tackles are considered too rough on quarterbacks in todays NFL. The Aaron Rodgers Rule!

I feel like the defensive players dont know what to do at this point when they get flagged for textbook form tackling that they were taught in their childhood years.

Yeah, I saw a couple of plays yesterday that made me question how defense can be played in this environment.

One was a play in which the QB (I believe it was Rodgers, but maybe Mahomes) went to throw a pass but pulled back at the last minute as the rush was coming into him. The DL was engaged with a blocker and ran into the QB as his arm was coming forward. He couldn't see that the QB still had the ball, so he completely stopped and the QB scrambled away. The announcers mentioned how "weird" the play was and were questioning why he stopped. Well, dummies, he stopped because if the QB had thrown the ball and he continued to tackle him to the ground, he probably would have been flagged. So he let up, and it cost him.

The other was seeing repeated plays where the safety is trying to break up a catch over the middle and getting flagged for hitting a defenseless receiver. It's not even helmet-to-helmet at this point - if the receiver is in the air, catch or not, and the safety hits him, it's a flag. It got me wondering whether the NFL is essentially going to legislate the Safety position out of the game, or at least, completely change the position forever. I don't know what these guys are supposed to do anymore other than run support. coverage, and tackle guys after they've made a catch.

That wasn't what I saw. The QB was hit a split second after throwing the ball (which was intercepted and would have ended the game). He wasn't lifted or slammed. Just tackled. Wish I could find a better video than this.

If that's roughing the passer, I genuinely have no clue how you are supposed to tackle a QB.

He did drive him into the ground at least a little bit. But that's definitely one that's not always going to get called.

Personal fouls still aren't reviewable right? So you're going to have some missed calls. And when you move the slider in the direction of more personal foul calls, you're also moving the slider of how extreme the incorrect calls are going to look. Whatever a foul is under the rules, there will be some % of plays under THAT threshold that get called. It is what is, they're not going to open up big hits at this point.

He even rolled off of Cousins a bit to avoid putting his full weight on him.

This could be posted in the college football thread instead, but since we are talking about penalties that exist to make the game "safer" here, I'll post here instead.

The intent is fine, but they need to think everything through. Beyond the specific "rougher the passer" penalty during a sack that we've talked about here, I'm thinking of two specific instances from this weekend:

- The North Texas "fake fair catch" is entirely playing on the fact that 1) he appeared to give himself up and 2) defenders are scared of getting penalties. I think they should have blown that play dead. At some point someone will get destroyed when they really called a fair catch and the coverage team didn't hear or see anything.

- Georgia Tech got called for multiple late hits in the first half of their game, one for hitting a guy in bounds as he was going down the sideline. Yeah, maybe he was going to head out of bounds, but if he didn't see that defender coming to tackle him, you can bet he was going to continue to head up field.

I am perfectly fine with rules to make the game safer, but common sense needs to be applied.

The North Texas thing blows my mind. Ive ben searching and cant find it, but I remember a play several years ago where a Miami player was flagged for a 15 yard unsportsmanlike for the exact same thing. Faking a fair catch, IIRC it was stated that it was a safety rule.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/...t-compensation

Your analysis seems to be spot on whether you intended it or not. :p

If I was a runner, especially a QB, I'd exploit this until I got carted off the field. Basically, run to the sideline, and if the defender lets up as I get close to going out of bounds, cut up field or dive forward at the last second for a few extra yards. And then every so often, randomly fake doing it but go out of bounds, let the guy react and hit me, draw a penalty, and laugh all the way back to the huddle (15 yards closer to the end zone).

I wonder what would have happened if some trailer and seen the whole thing, figured it out, and continued running full speed and blown him up. Probably a flag and ejection.

This. I am shocked that this isn't more of a talking point today.

Yeah, I can't believe the North Texas play either. If I were the NCAA or NFL, I would immediately reiterate that an act of "giving up" is viewed the same as a fair catch by the referees. Otherwise, this could get out of hands quickly.

To hijack this for the Clay Matthews hit. I think the reason he got flagged was because Cousins jumped right as he was throwing (and before Clay made contact). This made it seem like Clay had lifted him up and drove him to the turf. If I were a QB throwing the ball away with the rush coming in, I might jump a little everytime just to make it look like I got lifted up.

IMO, I get protecting the QB and I'm not as mad about the Matthews hit as many other Packer fans. I think the ref thought he saw something at real time that never really happened. But, you can review targeting calls in college to see if it is an ejection. I think you should be able to review roughing the passer penalties as well in the same manner. If the goal is to protect QBs, I think allowing the impacted team to review the call is a way to balance out the clear mistakes. In this case, the ref said that the penalty was NOT for driving Cousins into the turf - but instead for lifting and driving him. One look at the replay and he would have realized Cousins jumped and Matthews didn't lift him.

Le'Veon Bell did this last year vs the Bengals at the sideline.

I'm probably the furthest thing from a "just put flags on them at this point" guy but if you showed me that Matthews play without any context I'd say that would be the kind of play the league would use to show how to avoid even the slight chance of drawing one of the new roughing penalties. What a disaster.

I guess a little. But that's still the point of tackling a person is to get them to the ground. He does seem to even pull off to the side a bit to avoid putting all his weight on Cousins.

That just seems like a perfect tackle to me that they teach in football. Hit the middle of the body, head off to the side. A guy that size and that speed just can't stop on a dime.

I wonder if teams will start teaching pass rushers to just go for the arm. Especially with quarterbacks getting so good at scrambling. Just make the aim turnovers instead of sacks where you might get 3 a game but also get 3 roughing the passer penalties to negate it.

100% agree. The problem is that teams will emulate what this guy did. So punt teams will be scared to let a guy go and will just smash guys who legitimately called fair catch.

The other thing from the weekend was the lack of a whistle in that Bills game when Taiwan Jones helmet got ripped off. Guy could have been killed. Haven't heard an update but it looks like he got a concussion and a slew of stitches/staples as he was bleeding profusely from the head.

Nope, I guess the NFL is doubling down on the Clay Matthews hit being a foul - NFL to use Clay Matthews penalty in teaching video - NFL.com I remember UConn scoring a TD where the guy basically did call a fair catch then started running - UConn's UNFAIR catch - YouTube

Terrell Buckley at FSU also did the same thing, though he didn't have 5 guys around him who walked past him before he started running like the North Texas guy - Seminole Moment: Terrell Buckley's 69-Yard Punt Return TD vs. Syracuse (1989) - YouTube

Josh Gordon to the Pats for a conditional 5th round pick/

Josh Gordon already has Brady's number tattooed on his back.

So it appears the NFL wants a pass rusher to wait until a QB (who jumps throwing the ball) completely lands before beginning a hit (which, of course, would make it a late hit). I firmly believe that QBs should begin jumping before throwing the ball away around any pass rush or even when they have to ground it. The defender will have no choice but hit them while they are in the air and do the "scoop and pull" tactic. I just can't believe the NFL didn't see Cousins leave his feet before Matthews hit him.

At this point, I don't see how Green Bay can play Matthews when they have a late lead. That's about as clean a hit as you are going to get from him - and it's still roughing.

And sooner or later a defender will break his collarbone, arm, wrist or something in putt8ng his arm out to take the force and roll away from the QB.

Yep, 5th is going, but we have a 7th rounder coming back if Gordon isn't active for 10 games. Hopefully he's Randy Moss 2.0 & not Chad Ochocinco, Reggie Wayne, Kenny Britt, Jordan Matthews a.k.a. all the other veteran WR's we've brought in to no success.

PS can Josh Gordon return punts? Because I don't think our current strategy of having no punt returner is going to be a good long term plan.

Was literally the first words out of my mouth when I heard they were looking to trade him.

Literally one of the most hilarious sports news I've heard. How bad do you have to be when a player retires at halftime?

There will now be a set of Bears fans who will scream murder if Trubisky doesn't put up Mahomes numbers tonight.

Since when did the ESPN crew calling Monday Freakin' Night Football become Amateur Hour? These people are horrible! Who are they? The old guy is alright but the two young guys suck ass.

Much better playcalling overall by Nagy this week. Imagine what he could do with a better QB.

Brian Baldinger breaking down the Giants offensive line issues.

.@giants have MAJOR issues with basic assignment football and the fallout is affecting the Coach and the QB. There is ZERO trust that the protection will hold up in any given play. If you don’t think it can’t get worse...??? #BaldyBreakdowns pic.twitter.com/5aZjs3IIfv

— Brian Baldinger (@BaldyNFL) September 17, 2018

Like Mahomes?

If he was drafted by Chicago last year, he probably would have been ruined.

And we thought Jon Gruden sucked.

I usually don't care about the announcers and it doesn't ruin the game for me to listen to them, but Witten should have kept playing ball. Not cringe-inducing bad or anything, but not good. And I have no use for Booger or similar personalities in my sports announcing. He's another Siragusa.

This is where I land. I rarely even notice the announcers one way or the other, but I paused at one point and had to actually think if it was week one and this was the B team. It wasn't as bad as the year they had Greenie and Golic, but not great.

They should have gotten Romo, I really like him.

We are going to be seeing a lot more of this. Green Bay has had a league-high 4 roughing the passer calls in 2 games - so Mike Daniels was terrified of getting another and didn't wrap up Cousins in this play:

It’s hard enough rushing the QB without needing to calculate whether or not to actually finish the sack. Only going to see more awkward plays like this. pic.twitter.com/q5jwP2lCE7

— Ryan Wood (@ByRyanWood) September 18, 2018

Very few announcer teams that add to a game. Michaels/Collinsworth is the best, Romo is better than most, I'm sure there are a couple of others who are solid. Most announcers actively detract from the game.

That's the play I was talking about earlier. And the announcers totally missed the context of what happened and thought it was strange, like they were questioning why the defensive player stopped.

You know, it's that right there. That would cause me to stop watching or caring about football.

Holding, offense, #74. 10 yard penalty.