Roughing the passer?

Regarding Thomas's sack and subsequent penalty: I thought that the rule was quite specifically that you couldn't "drive" the quarterback into the ground, which I have always understood to mean you plough the QB to the ground with you on top of him. Adalius most certainly didn't do that.

Wilfork xould not have made a cleaner, more considerate tackle.

AD? Well, the announcer shouldn't use quarteback and piledriver in the same sentence.

patchick said:

What really gets me is that they're not calling the "in the grasp" rule. So the whistle doesn't blow, the defender has to keep wrestling the QB, then if you throw him to the ground a little roughly or finish your tackle a fraction of a second late it's a penalty. The penalty on AD struck me as more of a function of the official being hesitant to blow the whistle than anything else.

Click to expand...

As always Patchick, you are right on the money. Watching that Squeelers game, Tennessee had Big Ben in their grasp several times but he kept fighting so when is it a sack? If the whistle doesn't blow, the defender has to make sure the QB can't make a play.

Once again I'm late to the discussion, but I wanted to speak my peace. I was PISSED last night watching the game at those two calls.

The one on Wilfork - come on. I'm all for protecting the QB, but this is getting ridiculous. What did Vince do? He tackled the guy around the waist. Big deal. He wasn't going for the knee.

Now I understand the spirit behind the rule, but even last year I didn't think it was a dirty hit when Brady went down. It was the same thing as when Wilfork hit J.P. Losman two years before - you have 300 lb. guys running forward into a group of moving, flailing 300 lb. bodies, when they fall down they're gonna go "boom." It's not like what Brett Favre did against the Texans a couple weeks ago. Sheesh!

But the call on Thomas really got me riled. Maybe it's a matter of perception, and obviously I'm a little biased, but what's a defender supposed to do? As long as the QB is up, he can make a throw and do damage. Adalius had to get him down to keep him from throwing - what's he supposed to do? It reminds me of that play a few years ago when that Giants defender had the Titans QB wrapped up and then let go because he thought he'd get flagged, only to see the QB complete a pass.

In Sunday night's game Brian Urlacher absolutely creamed Aaron Rodgers with a hit that came after Rodgers had released the ball. If the refs at our game had been doing that game, he'd have been flagged.

I understand what the league is trying to do, but this has got to stop.

Both calls were pretty bad, meanwhile replays showed Brady being gang-tackled and abused after the throw is away......

I'm glad we were lucky enough to get a chance to pull out a win. Sheeeesh