Titans coach Jeff Fisher, a member of the league’s competition committee, says that two widely discussed hits on quarterbacks in the NFL this were were wrongly officiated by the referees.
Fisher said in a discussion with Rich Eisen on NFL Network’s Total Access that in Sunday’s game against the Steelers there was a hit on his own quarterback, Vince Young, that should have been called roughing the passer but didn’t draw a flag. Meanwhile, Fisher said, Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs was wrongly penalized for roughing the passer for a hit on Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer that wasn’t against the rules.
Regarding the hit on Young, who was sacked, picked up and driven into the ground on Sunday, Fisher said the referee screwed up by not throwing his flag.
“That should have been called,” Fisher said. “That is roughing the passer. That is textbook. You cannot lift and drive a quarterback into the ground. Now, why that was not called? I cannot answer that. I don’t know. But that should have been called.”
The league office apparently agrees with Fisher, because Steelers linebacker James Harrison was fined $5,000 for the play.
But Fisher says that while the referee in the Steelers-Titans game didn’t do enough to protect Young, the referee in the Ravens-Bengals game went too far in trying to protect Palmer.
“This is a clean hit on the quarterback,” Fisher said as video of Suggs’ hit on Palmer was shown.
Former V.P. of officiating Mike Pereira has already gone on record as saying he disagreed with the flag on Suggs as well.
Fisher did, however, defend the NFL’s referees in general, and he pointed to another roughing the passer penalty -- called on Fred Robbins of the Rams on Sunday against the Raiders -- as an example of one that the referee got right.
“The job of the referee is not an easy job -- the job of all seven of those officials is not easy,” Fisher said. “There’s going to be mistakes that are made.”
