Just over 24 hours after a controversial rough the passer call played into the Buccaneers-Falcons matchup, an equally as egregious — if not worse — call took place on “Monday Night Football.”
Late in the second quarter of the Monday night matchup, Chiefs defensive lineman Chris Jones strip-sacked Raiders passer Derek Carr, but a flag for roughing the passer was thrown, seemingly for Jones landing on top of Carr with all his body weight.
This specific implementation of the roughing the passer rule falls under Rule 12, Article 11, Section B of the NFL rulebook, which bans “stuffing” the quarterback into the ground:
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But that’s where the gray area comes in: Jones appears to brace his fall with his left hand, which would satisfy the last criteria of avoiding the rule here.
The Raiders would take the 15-yard penalty and parlay it into a field goal to stretch the lead to 20-7. The Chiefs later mounted a comeback to win 30-29, deeming the play somewhat less consequential in the end.
After the game, referee Carl Cheffers explained the reasoning behind his call of roughing the passer.
No one (aside from Raiders fans) were pleased with the call, starting with Troy Aikman and continuing to Tony Dungy and others:
