4 Lasting takeaways from Atlanta Falcons loss to officials

4.  Tom Brady can no longer be sacked

Yet again the NFL media is seemingly losing the narrative surrounding sacking the quarterback in relation to Tua’s concussion and awful injury last week.  Tua was allowed to start in a game he shouldn’t have been four days after clearly hitting his head hard on the turf and wobbling when he attempted to get up and walk toward the line of scrimmage.  Four days later Tua was sacked on what was a clean play but hit his head on the sack and was carted off the field after the scary injury.

The league office and teams must do a better job of protecting not just their quarterbacks but their players. Taking them off the field when they sustain a hit to the head and putting protocols in place to protect their players and not allowing teams to put their players in harm’s way as the Dolphins did to Tua.

With all of this said, the roughing the passer call for Tom Brady on Sunday and Derek Carr on Monday night are laughable. They are missing the real story and allowing the officials to make game-changing calls for absolutely no reason. If Brady or Carr either one hit their head on those plays take them off the field and make sure they are okay, protect the people who are far more important than a game.

However, at the same time, you cannot so vastly overcorrect that suddenly defenders are no longer allowed to sack the quarterback. The ways quarterbacks can be sacked are already so limited what more can these defenders chance and still be able to do their job?

Let’s not lose the narrative here,  the Tua situation should have nothing to do with Brady or Carr being given terrible calls. Tua’s story is one that speaks to the team letting their quarterback down and the league failing to step in when he clearly took a blow to the head and was unstable afterward.

The sack that caused the Tua injury wasn’t the issue, it was a clean play from a defender playing within the rules and obviously bearing no ill intent to the Miami quarterback. Officials must stop dirty hits or lead with the helmet to avoid these types of plays. However, at the end of the day, this game is a violent one with a large amount of risk, unless the league is willing to change the game completely this isn’t going to change, and robbing the Chiefs and Falcons of calls this weekend doesn’t protect your players but harms the integrity of the game.