Giants' Jon Beason Thinks Quarterbacks Should Be Penalized For Making Dangerous Passes To Receivers

BSO- “In my opinion, I think they should flag the quarterbacks for throwing the ball there,” Beason said, via the New York Daily News. “Back in the day, certain routes in certain coverages said I could not throw this seam route because it’s cover-4, safety’s sitting right on top of there, I don’t want to get my guy killed.”

“Now you throw the ball, guys get hit, they may be hurt, maybe not,” Beason said. “You roll around, the flag comes out. Well, it’s a good play for the offense … So you play to the rules. I think the onus should be on the quarterbacks not to throw those balls.

“Then we wouldn’t have those collisions.”



I get what Jon Beason is trying to say here. Many times when a flag is thrown for a hit on a defenseless receiver it is the product of the quarterback leading his target into a situation where he could end up being on the receiving end of a big collision. We blame defenders for taking leisure with such situations. In reality, with the speed of the game now-a-days, often times it's damn near impossible for them to make the split second decision to hold up from making contact with a vulnerable offensive player. 

Now, even though that is understandable, it's downright comedic that Jon Beason thinks a league that is constantly looking for ways to increase scoring would ever punish quarterbacks for their questionable decision making. As a matter of fact, what's even more hilarious is that he thinks that they SHOULD punish quarterbacks for such plays. I'm aware that professional football is becoming increasingly difficult for defensive players. Some would argue the style of play in the NFL is even unfair to those players. With that said, as hard as it is to play linebacker in the National Football League, it will always be more difficult to play quarterback. That's why their always be more elite players at any given position than there will be at quarterback. Quarterbacks are forced to make decisions more quickly than any defensive player is, and they have to do so while being under the pressure of 4-6 outlandishly freakish athletes at any given time. Expecting them not to expose their receivers, tight ends, or running backs to harm once in awhile isn't just some euphoric view of football, it's completely inconceivable. Quarterback is the most cognitively demanding position, and even the best ones are going to fuck up from time to time. Forcing signal callers to give a second thought to the position of every single defender before they throw the ball won't just make the NFL a less offensive league, it will likely get the players at it's most important position put in bodybags. 

Quarterbacks may be partially responsible for some extremely precarious situations, but that doesn't absolve linebackers and safeties when the take advantage of those situations. What's next Jon? We going to start blaming the girl who's idea it was to go out when their friend gets sexually assaulted? Penalizing the person that introduced the drug user to the drug dealer when when they both get busted possessing narcotics? You know what, it's probably the gun salesman's fault when someone gets murdered with their product. We can't just attribute all violations to a third party that may or may not have put others in a bad position. At the end of the day, it's not their fault when a bad situation gets the best of others.