Officials Explain 'Brady Rule' Clarification

Tom Brady is back, healthy as ever, so I guess it makes sense that he should have his own rule to guarantee his future safety. Peter King would want it that way.

In March, the Competition Committee clarified an already existing rule on hitting the quarterback, and because it was born out of Brady's Week 1, season-ending knee injury, it affectionately became known as "The Brady Rule."

Giving NFL officials more opportunities to make judgment calls was unsurprisingly unpopular (old-timers hate change), not to mention that, in Adam Gretz's words, "the NFL seems determined to continue its downward spiral toward becoming a two-hand touch league."

Complaints aside, the clarification is on the books for the 2009 season (and beyond, no doubt), which means that we can expect a flurry of flags anytime a defender gets close to a quarterback's knees. NFL official Terry McAulay explained the nuances of the clarification during a recent visit to Patriots' training camp:

"We're looking for forcible contact, basically forearm, shoulder, or helmet right into his knee or below,'' McAulay told the Boston Globe. "A normal tackle is rarely a roughing-the-passer foul; it's that dangerous hit, right at the knee when he lunges, that we're looking at. Obviously, a player thrown into the quarterback or something like that would not be a foul. But that lunge, that forcible contact, anything at the knee or below, we're going to be pretty tight on.''

One more time: expect to see a flurry of flags anytime a defender gets close to a quarterbacks knees. It won't be intentional, but whenever there is a new rule, or a clarification on a current one, a rash of penalties -- called correctly or not -- follow.

But as Patriots' running back Sammy Morris -- and the guy who was blocking the Chiefs' Bernard Pollard before he collapsed Brady's knee last September -- pointed out, "I don't know if it would have changed anything,'' he said. "Maybe it would have changed after the fact, in terms of a penalty or something.''

FanHouse's Matt Snyder, who moonlights as a high school football official, agrees with Morris.

"A flag wouldn't have magically healed Brady's knee. I always love when people complain that something 'had to be a penalty.' Why? 'Because he got hurt.' OK, so I'll stop watching the play and just wait until after it happens. If someone gets hurt, I'll throw a flag.

Obviously [the league is] hoping for a deterrent, but plays like the Brady one are pretty heat of the moment and are still going to happen. It's just that now more yellow laundry will accompany the injured quarterback on the field. Forcing officials to try and judge intent is a bit murky, so are they asking them to flag every hit on a QB below the waist? Have fun, white hats."

Yeah, this should be barrel-of-monkeys-type fun.

As Snyder mentions, I'm not sure this helps prevent injuries (the original rule was implemented after Carson Palmer's knee injury during the 2005 postseason, and Brady and Matt Schaub can confirm that fact didn't help them while defenders were exploding their respective knees), but it will mean that NFL Vice President of Officiating Mike Pereira will spend a disproportionate amount of his time doing PR damage control after an egregious call changes the outcome of a game.

On the upside, it will momentarily distract us from Michael Vick's job search and the news that Brett Favre is still contemplating a comeback.