As far as I'm concerned, the picture shows exactly what a defensive player is supposed to do to the quarterback. It's like a freeze-frame of my favorite moments from the Buddy Ryan era. When a quarterback drops back to pass, he is taking a risk. I don't see a victim in this picture. I see a guy who gambled and lost. He is going to hit the ground, hard, and that ball he was trying to pass is going to go sailing who-knows-where. Havoc is being wrought. The NFL has been legislating this play out of existence for years now. I think the Tuck rule game was when it was mortally wounded. Tom Brady didn't protect himself, the Raiders came at him, and Brady got nailed on a textbook blind-side sack-and-fumble. Except it wasn't, because some ridiculous rule said that a fumble wasn't a fumble, that if a quarterback tried to pass and changed his mind, that created a mystical safe space where he couldn't be responsible for losing the ball. Before, it was physics. The defender got a shot at the quarterback. If he got there fast, the prize was a sack, maybe with a fumble. A beat slower, and the prize was a wobbling duck, maybe a pop-up interception. A beat slower than that, and the defender still got to put the quarterback on the ground, give him something to remember him by. Only if he came in still another beat slower was it roughing the passer. Now it's metaphysics. The quarterback is "defenseless," because he is focused on throwing the ball. The act of throwing a football (or of deciding not to throw a football, or now of catching a thrown football) exists on a plane parallel to but outside of normal football, a plane where nobody is allowed to hit anybody-a dimension formerly reserved for punters who had already punted, and other similarly irrelevant characters. Not for the players who were actively trying to advance the ball."They should just put a skirt on the quarterback," Jack Lambert said in disgust, long ago, about much milder protections. When we hear these things from a Lambert or a James Harrison, it's natural to hear it as the voice of a big man annoyed that he can't hurt a smaller man. I have no sympathy for the players who are looking for a spot to injure somebody. Tony Siragusa grinding his bulk on top of a player half his size was nothing to be proud of. Yet defensive players aren't wrong to feel like the quarterback is getting away with something.
