On Wednesday, Jets coach Robert Saleh said he would be talking to the league about the roughing-the-passer foul called called on Sunday in Dallas against defensive lineman John Franklin-Myers. Saleh reportedly got an answer.
Via Brian Costello of the New York Post, the league told the Jets that the foul should not have been called, and that the hit was legal.
“There’s nothing I can coach to make that differently because he got pulled down, his face still hit the hip above the knee, which is still legal,” Saleh had told reporters. “So everything about it was legal.”
The NFL agreed. Not that it really matters now.
The flag was thrown on a third-down play from the Jets’ 11. The pass from Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott to receiver CeeDee Lamb had fallen incomplete. The Cowboys, who led at the time 10-7, presumably would have opted for a field goal.
Instead, they got a fresh set of downs at the five. Dallas eventually scored a touchdown.
The problem with the roughing foul continues to be that the rulebook expressly tells the officials to throw the flag, when in doubt. Which means that there will be occasions when legal hits are flagged, if/when the officials resolve any doubt in the manner that they are instructed.
In this case, Franklin-Myers appeared to come in low. While the hit was ultimately clean, there clearly was enough doubt to draw a flag.
The easy fix is to remove the “when in doubt” standard. Until that happens, roughing calls that shouldn’t have been made from time to time will happen.