Green Bay Packers linebacker Clay Matthews spoke out Sunday after getting called for a controversial roughing the passer penalty during a 31-17 loss to the Washington Redskins.
According to Lindsay Jones of The Athletic, Matthews expressed the NFL has gone too far when it comes to protecting quarterbacks.
"Unfortunately this league is going in a direction that a lot of people don't like,"Matthews said. "I think they're getting soft. The only thing hard about this league is the fines they're laying down on guys like me who play the game hard."
Matthews was called for a similar roughing the passer penalty against the Minnesota Vikings last week, but he was not fined.
While Matthews' hit arguably looked hard but clean, the NFL announced he landed on Smith with "all or most" of his weight, which is against the rules.
Per ESPN.com's Rob Demovsky, Packers Coach Mike McCarthy was "irate" after the call and had to be restrained on the sideline.
The penalty didn't have a significant impact on the game, since Washington punted later in the drive and Green Bay didn't score any points the rest of the way.
Matthews has 80 career sacks to his credit, but he has yet to register a sack through three games this season for the 1-1-1 Packers.
Stay tuned
The Tennessee Volunteers suffered quite a beating at the hands of Florida on Saturday, but junior linebacker Quart'e Sapp wasn't there to see all of it. And now, his future with the program is in question.
During his comments after the 47-21 loss, Tennessee's coach Jeremy Pruitt told the media that he asked Sapp to leave the sideline when he refused enter the game when Pruitt asked him to. During the game, rumors swirled that Sapp had abruptly quit the team.
"He wouldn't go into the game when he was asked to go in," Pruitt said via the Knoxville News-Sentinel. I don't know how things were done before, but when you tell somebody to go in and they refuse to go in, we're not going to do that around here. I asked him to leave. He didn't leave on his own. I asked him to leave."
Pruitt, who is in his first year of coaching the Vols after two years as defensive coordinator at Alabama, said that Sapp has been a really good "ambassador" for the program, and indicated that he hadn't had any disciplinary issues with him before.
Sapp has played in just one game this season and made three tackles. He made 78 tackles last season when he was a sophomore.
In a message posted Sunday on Twitter, Sapp had a different account to what happened.
"Never would I disrespect my team, my coaches, my family or the fans by not giving my all for Tennessee," he tweeted. "I'm only going to address the situation publicly once, knowing the current narrative has been created through miscommunication.
"During the UT vs UF game I never was asked nor did I ever refuse to go into the game. There was a sideline confrontation [I'm sure will be resolved internally] that occurred and the other party involved had to be restrained."
While Pruitt seemed to indicate that Sapp's standing with the team moving forward was in question, Sapp wrote that he would continue to be "fully committed" to the program.
Sports on 09/24/2018