Various NFL stars and personalities have spoken out about the controversial roughing the passer penalty called on Falcons defensive tackle Grady Jarrett after he sacked Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady on Sunday.
Cowboys linebacker Micah Parsons added to the conversation on Monday, joining the popular sentiment that the penalty should not have been called and that it was a clean shot at the quarterback.
The reigning NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year posted an image of him from Sunday’s Cowboys–Rams game, in which it can be seen that he was being held back from tackling Los Angeles quarterback Matthew Stafford. No penalty was called on the Rams offensive line during that play.
“We won’t call this but we’ll call a roughing the passer lol!” Parsons wrote on Twitter. “Can we focus in and protect defensive players?”
Parsons ended his tweet with a suggestion that the NFL should also focus on the safety of defensive players, instead of focusing on when offensive players are taken down during plays. Often, plays like the one Parsons posted a picture of (when a defensive player is held onto or hit hard) are not called.
The NFL official who called the roughing the passer penalty on Sunday, Jerome Boger, later explained that he called the penalty based on the notion that Jarrett “grabbed the quarterback [Brady] while he was still in the pocket… unnecessarily throwing him to the ground.”
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