Former Houston Texans defensive end J.J. Watt wants the NFL to help out defenses with a simple rule tweak.
Watt made a Wednesday appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show” where the longtime pass rusher was asked to comment on what some believe to be a lack of offensive holding calls in today’s NFL (10:30 mark).
The five-time All-Pro called the dearth of offensive holding calls “frustrating” from a pass rusher’s perspective. He also claimed there’s “no question” that pass rushers — particularly the elite guys like Micah Parsons, Myles Garrett, and J.J.’s brother T.J. Watt — are constantly being held by blockers without proper recourse.
Watt’s proposed solution was for the NFL to reduce the penalty attached to offensive holding from 10 yards to just 5 yards.
“What I think is the answer, I think refs understand that a 10-yard penalty is a massive penalty in the NFL," Watt said. "So I think if you made holding a 5-yard penalty, I think it is going to be called much more fairly and much more realistically because it’s not as crippling to the offense.”
While it may sound counterintuitive to lower the penalty on something Watt wants to be called more, he stated that a lighter punishment might encourage referees to call it more often. Watt argued that softened penalties for offensive holding would lead to such infractions being flagged more, which may lead to less holding altogether.
Watt’s idea could work in theory. But there’s no guarantee that referees would respond to such a rule change exactly in line with Watt’s psychological deduction.
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