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After a pair of controversial roughing the passer penalties last week spurred calls for the NFL to revamp its rules, a league executive on Sunday backed the referees’ decisions.
However, executive vice president of football operations Troy Vincent declined to say whether the calls by referees Jerome Boger and Carl Cheffers were correct.
“We support those calls,” Vincent said during an appearance on ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown. “Why? Because in Article 11 [of the rulebook], this is the one rule – and we have a ton of rules – where the judgment you give the referee, that white hat, is the latitude to call that play in real time. If that’s what both Carl and Jerome in those two particular games, if that’s what they saw, the rule allows us to say yes to support it.”
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Last Sunday, Atlanta Falcons defensive end Grady Jarrett was flagged for his mild takedown of Buccaneers QB Tom Brady. And then on Monday night, Kansas City Chiefs lineman Chris Jones was penalized for falling on top of the Raiders’ Derek Carr after ripping the ball from Carr’s hands.
“Sometimes there’s a point where you got to let guys play,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said after the game, “and we just got to find where that happy medium is.”
Neither Jarrett nor Jones were fined for their hits.
“They’re judgment calls,” Vincent explained.
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