With 45 seconds left in the San Francisco 49ers’ divisional round win over the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday, Dak Prescott rolled to his right from his own six-yard line, and tried to throw the ball to tight end Dalton Schultz near the sideline. Prescott was flummoxed in his efforts by San Francisco defensive lineman Arik Armstead, who worked out of his left defensive tackle spot to roll with Prescott.
For the briefest of moments, it looked as if Armstead had Prescott in the grasp in the end zone. Tackling Dallas’ quarterback there would have ended the game, as the 49ers already had a 19-12 lead. But Armstead failed to tackle Prescott.
You can see from the end zone angle that Armstead laid off Prescott after an initial push.
One might imagine that Armstead was reacting proactively to the idea of drawing a roughing the passer penalty in that moment.
At the end of his Monday press conference, 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan was asked if he understood that this was the reason for Armstead’s hesitation, and if he aligned with Armstead’s thought process.
“Yeah, I did,” Shanahan said. “It’s an unfortunate, tougher position than it looks to get caught in. I think he thought Dak was going to throw it, so I think he was going in there with the mindset to get his hands up to try to tip it. Then Dak didn’t and it caught him off guard and then he was afraid the position he was in, he was about to hit him high and get a penalty.
“When you’re approaching a quarterback, it’s so hard for these guys to hit in that target area and not get a penalty that you really have to approach it the right way. And I believe without talking to him, just watching on film, he was approaching him to get his hands up to tip it — and then all of a sudden when he saw he wasn’t in that situation, he didn’t want to get that 15-yard penalty. Once I watched the tape, I can totally see why it happened, and that’s just kind of the challenges these guys have.”
Where would Armstead get that idea? Perhaps from a league that doesn’t legislate roughing the passer in any reasonable or sensible way. There is this specific proviso in the current NFL Rule Book:
When in doubt about a roughness call or potentially dangerous tactic against the passer, the Referee should always call roughing the passer.
Whether Prescott was a runner or a passer at the point where Armstead got to him? Didn’t matter. If the officiating crew, led by Bill Vinovich, deemed that Armstead had committed roughing the passer by dint of their Magic 8-Ball, that was going to be that.
So, don’t always blame a defender for failing to make a big play. There are times when defenders are inhibited from doing so by a rule book that doesn’t always make a lot of sense.
