Commanders' KJ Henry hit with questionable roughing the passer flag on Mac Jones sack

The New England Patriots just caught a major break thanks to a very questionable roughing the passer penalty called on the Washington Commanders

On third down and ten from the Washington’s 38-yard line, Patriots QB Mac Jones dropped back and was strip-sacked by Commanders pass rusher KJ Henry as Washington recovered what would have been a momentum-changing fumble. Instead, Henry was flagged for yet another roughing the passer call that left NFL fans speechless.

Here was the very light roughing call on Henry:

This was flagged for roughing the passer pic.twitter.com/T7d76u5vgJ

— Ben Brown 🌻 (@BenBrownPL) November 5, 2023

Although Henry did force a fumble, upon further inspection of that replay, it does seem that Mac Jones got his elbow and knee down before the ball popped out and was recovered by Washington. Still, even a sack on that third down would have forced a much longer field goal try — or possibly even a punt.

Instead, New England was rewarded a new set of downs for that glancing takedown of Jones that really didn’t seem to violate the current roughing the passer criteria. The Pats were forced into a fourth down on that next set of downs, however, they got to kick a field goal from 23 yards closer to the goal posts than they would have had they taken the sack.

All the way back at the 47 of Washington, that’s a field goal try from 65ish yards and Bill Belichick is likely punting that one away. So, New England was essentially rewarded three points there on a sketchy roughing the passer call.

More on KJ Henry

A five-year player at Clemson, Henry played in 48 career games. He’s steadily improved his counting stats as he went through the years. From 4.5 tackles for loss and two sacks in his second season in 2019 — his first season of significant playing time — to nine tackles for loss and 3.5 sacks as a senior, Henry was a force to be reckoned with off the edge.

Henry never had a game in college with more than 2.5 tackles for loss or a multi-sack game, but stacked steady production as an accessory pass rushing option.

The talent has never been an issue for Henry, who was a five-star prospect out of West Forsyth (S.C.) High School in the 2018 class according to the On3 Industry Ranking. He was the No. 10 overall prospect in the class and top player from his home state. Henry was the No. 2 EDGE in the class behind Eyabi Okie.