Pittsburgh Steelers safety Minkah Fitzpatrick was flagged for a controversial roughing the passer penalty in the fourth quarter of the team’s 23-18 win over the Las Vegas Raiders that eventually led to a Raiders touchdown. With the Steelers leading 23-7, Fitzpatrick appeared to sack Raiders QB Jimmy Garoppolo, which would’ve put the Raiders in a difficult third-and-long situation. Instead, they ended up with a first-and-goal at the Pittsburgh nine-yard line and punched it in a few plays later. OLB T.J. Watt seemingly didn’t agree with the call and was at a loss for words postgame.
“I don’t even know what to say about that,” Watt said in his postgame press conference via the Steelers’ YouTube channel.
He added that there wasn’t an explanation.
“I didn’t really look for one, I was too tired to ask,” Watt said.
Luckily, the play didn’t seriously come back to bite the Steelers in the rear, as they were still able to get the win at Allegiant Stadium. But it was a brutal call, one made even more ridiculous when you look back on the officials ignoring two hits to the head that Steelers QB Kenny Pickett suffered in the first half.
The NFL is trying to eliminate hits to the head, and especially wants to protect quarterbacks. So in real-time I guess if it looked like Fitzpatrick made helmet-to-helmet contact with Garoppolo, the call makes a little bit of sense. But upon replay, it’s clear that there was no such contact, and it was just a case of Fitzpatrick going high and the play looking worse than what actually occurred.
It’s a no-win situation. If Fitzpatrick goes low, he’ll get penalized, since hits at or below the knee area are penalized for roughing the passer, and Fitzpatrick had to deal with the fallout of being called dirty after a low hit on Nick Chubb last week. Instead, he goes high, avoiding helmet contact, and somehow still bears the consequences with a flag at a crucial part of the game.
The Raiders mounted a little bit of a comeback after the penalty, making what was a 23-7 game a 23-18 game with 11 unanswered points, but the Steelers were able to hold onto the lead, securing the win after a Levi Wallace interception with five seconds left. But if that call isn’t made, as it shouldn’t have been, the Raiders might not be able to mount that comeback.
But either way, it didn’t affect the outcome and the Steelers sit at 2-1 and in first place in the AFC North. That’s really all that matters coming out of Week Three.
