McDaniels on Roughing the Passer Rules: 'It's a Fine Line'

Las Vegas Raiders coach Josh McDaniels gave his thoughts on this day and age's roughing the passer penalty.

The Las Vegas Raiders-Kansas City Chiefs game had what was probably the most controversial call of the NFL season so far.

When Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones strip sacked Raiders quarterback Derek Carr, he was given a roughing the passer penalty, one that had the NFL world up in arms.

"I think everybody understands the point and what we're trying to avoid," Raiders coach Josh McDaniels said after Wednesday's practice. "I think the guys that play that position are obviously unique, and we all want our quarterback to remain healthy as long as we can. And so the goal is obviously the right goal. I think sometimes it takes away from the aggression that the defensive players need to play with. And for that, I feel like it's a tough situation because I've seen some other scenarios where you got a guy in the grasp and you want to take him to the ground and you want to take him to the ground hard and you don't, and then he kind of squirts away. I saw one of those games this week where that happened, and it's like I don't blame the defensive guy for not really just landing on him with all his weight, because they're probably thinking about the consequences of the foul. 

"So it's a fine line. You've got to be aggressive, you're going to have to play hard. You're going to have to try to get to the passer, and then when you get there, you've just got to try to do the right thing. And we've seen all the videos, we've shown all the ways that we feel like they're going to call them, and we're coaching the right things I think. And hopefully we can avoid those fouls, but it's not an easy thing to do. It's not."

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