When sacking the quarterback goes wrong: ‘I’m so confused now,’ says Chiefs linebacker
The 6-foot-7 and 290-pound man made seven steps, one punch and a dip around a larger man. He reached the quarterback’s chest in 2.2 seconds, covering 12 yards or so, including a 90-degree turn around a trained professional whose only job was to get in the way.
This is one of the great moments in American sports, but the kind of violent ballet that’s made the NFL our greatest collective passion is now promptly penalized. That’s not the worst part.
Officials miss calls all the time. So, no. The penalty isn’t the worst part.
The worst part — the hair-pulling, pound-the-table, why-do-we-still-call-this-football part — is that it was the correct call, leaving linebacker Tanoh Kpassagnon and his Chiefs teammates the latest group of NFL players bewildered as to how they are supposed to do their jobs.
“I’m so confused now; I don’t know what they want us to do,” Chiefs linebacker Justin Houston said.
“I guess they kind of want me to do something a lot of people think is physically impossible,” Kpassagnon said.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I legit might not watch football anymore if this is what it’s going to become. <a href="https://t.co/Ga0OZuPz6x">pic.twitter.com/Ga0OZuPz6x</a></p>— Steve (@SteveMcCleary) <a href="https://twitter.com/SteveMcCleary/status/1033418737435729922?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 25, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Look, if your only NFL interest is the 2018 Chiefs, then this was far from the most important moment of their 27-20 loss to the Bears’ backups in the third preseason game here on Saturday.
If you are solely focused on the Chiefs, then you are likely solely worried about their defense in general, which was rusty, overmatched, slow, unfocused and generally incompetent against a group of players who aren’t good enough to start for a team that went 5-11 last year and got the head coach fired.
We all choose how to be fans, so whatever level of worry you deem reasonable based upon preseason performance is appropriate for a group that was among the league’s worst last year and has shown no tangible reason to expect much improvement so far.
But the penalty on Kpassagnon is part of a bigger and wider and self-generated problem for the NFL, one that’s dominated talk around the league but until now had not yet touched the Chiefs.
The league is shoulders-deep in confusion about how to call the new so-called helmet rule, and Kpassagnon’s hit on Bears quarterback Chase Daniel highlights the impossibility of policing safety in an inherently violent sport that is wildly popular in large part because it is inherently violent.
To be clear: this wasn’t the helmet rule. Kpassagnon did not hit Daniel’s helmet but was still dinged and now potentially fined for violating a new point of emphasis that drags the league further away from what most of us understand football to be. This is good intentions falsely deployed, a league using concerns about head injuries as cover to prohibit defense and further favor offense.
Because, let’s be honest. This is far less about protecting brains than it is about Aaron Rodgers’ collarbone.
Again, this is not a slam on the referee. The call was made properly. NFL game officials take loads of grief, much of it earned, but this was the correct call. It’s just a rule that has no realistic application at the highest level of football.
“Clete (Brakeman) is a good official, and an experienced official,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said. “I just have to see it. He’ll look at it. We’ll figure it out here.”
Among the league’s points of officiating emphasis this season is that when tackling a passer, the defender cannot land on the passer with all or most of his weight. This is not a new rule. Just one that’s being given more focus.
Bluntly, it’s nonsense.
Kpassagnon hit Daniel square. The act of merely getting there required talent, work, preparation and luck. The realities of football left no time for anything else and, besides, once Kpassagnon hit Daniel in the middle of the chest — the so-called strike zone — the only way to not land on him would be to twist the quarterback’s body in midair.
“If you do that, that’s when you body-slam him,” Houston said. “Because your weight, if you twist, it’s going to turn into a slam because of how fast you’re coming. So that’s still a penalty. I’m telling you, I don’t know how we’re supposed to hit the quarterback.”
Kpassagnon said he would appeal the call. There could be a fine coming, but he was talking specifically about the penalty. Officials visit with every team every offseason. Kpassagnon said the presentation left him with “kind of a gray area there.”
This particular moment was rife with complications. Kpassagnon is seven inches taller than Daniel, so he already needs to contort himself under or otherwise away from the shorter man’s helmet. He is also some 70 pounds heavier, so especially when beating his blocker clean it is a physical mismatch with the quarterback.
The play was further complicated because at the moment of contact Daniel was preparing to throw, his momentum taking him up slightly to his toes. When Kpassagnon came in, Daniel’s feet left the ground, adding to the optics.
“I got crushed,” Daniel said, laughing at the memory. “Absolutely. That’s football. It didn’t feel good, but that’s football. It’s physical.”
And now it’s illegal.
Look, it’s preseason for the officials, too. Every year we see points of emphasis that are overcalled in the preseason, then backed off once the games matter. Players know the drill, so do fans, and if that’s all this is then we can move on to the next thing.
But there is an underlying fear among some players that this is the new normal, that the NFL’s inexcusably awful handling of concussions has swung the pendulum way too far on the other side, and that the victims will be defenders who are no longer allowed to do much more than politely ask the quarterback to be sacked.
“All I saw was, I beat my guy, I see the quarterback about to throw, and then I hit him,” Kpassagnon said.
If this is how football is to be officiated now, Kpassagnon essentially had three options in that moment:
1. Continue like he did, hoping the rule is realistically enforced.
2. Attempt to twist Daniel’s body around so as to not land on him, which may have had the effect of a body-slam, a clear penalty and more physical risk.
3. Let up for fear of a penalty, allowing a pass downfield and further stress on a defense that looks like it’ll have enough stress already.
All of these options are bad for football as marketable American entertainment.
“You’re taking it away from football,” Houston said. “This is football. We know what we signed up for. Nobody made us do this. I understand injuries happen, and you wish it never happened, but this is football. This is what we play. Now, you want to take out the contact.
“Might as well just go out and continue to play flag football like we’re doing. No need for a pass rusher after a while.”
This story was originally published August 25, 2018 at 6:06 PM.