The roughing-the-passer debate flared right back up in Week 6, and this time two calls against the Chiefs and Packers had fans venting again.
For a penalty that was introduced to protect quarterbacks from major injuries, roughing the passer has long been a flashpoint. Plenty of fans accept the rule when the contact is clearly excessive.
Plenty of others think the league goes too far when the hit is barely more than a brush. On Sunday and then again hours later, those frustrations came roaring back.
Kansas City was first to get stung. In the second quarter of Sunday’s game, Chris Roland-Wallace appeared to have intercepted a bouncing Justin Herbert pass after the ball had pinged around through several hands.
Roland-Wallace celebrated the play, only for the flag to wipe it away. Ashton Gillotte was ruled to have roughed Herbert on the throw, and the call drew instant skepticism from viewers who thought the contact was too light to matter.
Hours later, Green Bay ran into the same kind of controversy. Lukas Van Ness was flagged after brushing Dak Prescott on a drop back, and the penalty erased an interception by Carrington Valentine. Prescott’s pass went into Valentine’s hands, but the turnover never counted because of the roughing call.
The two rulings didn’t end up swinging either game. Kansas City still won and moved to 5-0, while Green Bay also came out on top and improved to 4-2. But the calls were enough to leave a lot of fans unhappy, especially with incidental contact being punished so harshly on both plays.
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