Roughing the passer calls have been a topic of conversation around the league the last couple of weeks and they were part of the discussion at Tuesday’s league meetings in New York.
NFL executive vice president of football operations Troy Vincent said that there was “healthy conversation” about the recent calls. Vincent made it clear that nothing is going to change right now and that the league is not going to change its view on protecting quarterbacks.
“Everyone knows if your quarterback is not healthy, you don’t have a chance to win. . . . We’re not changing the philosophy around that call. . . . We’re not going to back off of protecting the quarterback,” Vincent said, via Mark Maske of the Washington Post.
Whatever the conversation on Tuesday, making roughing calls reviewable seems to be an uphill battle. NFL Competition Committee chairman Rich McKay said it was a discussion for the offseason, but noted that the experiment with making pass interference reviewable makes the committee wary of going down that route again.
“When you decide to review subjective fouls, then you’re going to have subjective eyes on something that’s already been viewed once,” McKay said.
McKay also noted that roughing calls are down overall this year, but that’s unlikely to keep any controversial ones in the future from drawing a lot of attention.