So the 49ers and the Bengals have a pretty good game going through one. But they just called a niner (Thomas somehow) for an attempted , almost gentle shoe string tackle attempt on the QB.
You know they have always had the ability to protect the QB . Always! It's called unnecessary roughness. Literally a level of roughness that wasn't required to make the play. they never need the "put skirts on the QB rules". NEVER. Just had to enforce when the hit was out of line with the play.
Now we are getting mandatory calls when a guy was trying to be everything but rough. How long before the players figure "Well I'm going to get flagged anyway, I might as well drill the SOB?"