Commanders’ Montez Sweat has NSFW response to roughing the passer penalties

Just because the Washington Commanders are playing bad football doesn’t mean fans don’t take in other action around the NFL. Unfortunately, Week 5’s slate of games was marred by two unforgivable roughing the passer penalties.

The issue has taken the NFL by storm and has players, including some on the offensive side of the ball, as well as broadcasters and color analysts, are taking the league to task. The importance of protecting quarterbacks is obvious, but there comes a point (like now) when defenders are put in impossible situations.

Is the NFL merely overreacting to the Tua Tagovaiola incident and enforcing stricter rules for the time being so as to send a message? By why should the rest of the league suffer when that was clearly an organizational mistake?

These are questions players are trying to answer, but they’re unfortunately at the mercy of the league, which is renowned for its stubbornness.

On Tuesday, several Commanders players were asked about the ongoing controversy. Jonathan Allen, Taylor Heinicke and Charles Leno offered up objective interpretations, but the trio was topped by Montez Sweat, who didn’t hold back describing what these penalties are doing to the game and its defenders.

Commanders DE Montez Sweat is sick of the NFL’s bogus roughing the passer penalties.

Sweat isn’t one to shy away from sharing his opinion and that was no different here. If you watched the two viral roughing the passer flags from Week 5, the pass rusher’s “put a pillow under the QB” idea might be defender’s saving grace.

The first came in the final minutes of the Falcons-Buccaneers game, when Atlanta clawed back from a 21-0 deficit to make it 21-16 in the fourth quarter.

On 3rd and 5 from the Falcons’ 47, Grady Jarrett got to Tom Brady and brought him down for a sack. Atlanta should’ve got the ball back with a chance to take the lead, but Jarrett was flagged for roughing the passer, Tampa got a fresh set of downs and milked the rest of the clock after it picked up another first.

Shame on Jarrett for not putting a pillow under Brady before wrestling him to the ground. It’d be one thing if the Falcons defensive lineman spun Brady and tossed him like a ragdoll. Nope. Jarrett simply followed his momentum, which took him into a spinning motion and the refs viewed it as roughing the quarterback.

Amazingly enough, the refs outdid themselves in Monday night’s Chiefs-Raiders showdown when Kansas City DL Chris Jones was flagged for executing a seemingly picture-perfect strip sack of Raiders quarterback Derek Carr. What should’ve been a game-changing turnover for the Chiefs turned into a fresh set of downs for the Raiders … all because Jones couldn’t stop gravity.

And thus, Jones became the first player in NFL history to get called for roughing the passer with the football in his hands.

Unlike Falcons-Bucs, this call didn’t alter the game’s outcome. The Chiefs actually used it as motivation and stormed back to win. The Arrowhead faithful played a huge role in that by creating one of the most hostile atmospheres we can remember and jeering the refs into giving Kansas City several make-up calls.

The undisputed worst call of all-time held that title for all of 24 hours before the Jones debacle topped it on Monday night. It’s a disgrace to the game and Sweat was more than justified in reprimanding the league.

We just hope for the NFL’s sake that Sweat doesn’t get called for one of these bogus penalties. Given how he played in Week 5 (six pressures, two sacks) and Week 6 (4 QB hits, 2 TFLs, one sack), odds are Sweat will continue putting referees in a position to make him a subject of one of these awful calls.