Eagles safety sides with Terrell Suggs

Terrell Suggs was called for roughing the passer when he tackled Eagles quarterback Sam Bradford during Saturday's exhibition game in Philadelphia. 

He was called for roughing the passer on that play, though the NFL's head of officiating publicly declared that the call was incorrect on Monday morning before a national television audience.

It being a zone-read play, he said, the quarterback is presumed a potential rusher, so is not due the special protection a passer otherwise would be. It's a line of reasoning Eagles coach Chip Kelly didn't care for, saying the play call was a regular shotgun handoff with no option.

Not so fast, says Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins.

"If I take myself out of an Eagles uniform, I'd probably do the same thing [that Suggs did]," he said.

Not that he would go for a man's knees or make any other dirty play, but that he would attack the quarterback running an offense with a reputation for the zone-read, as is Kelly's.

"It is a zone-read run," Jenkins insisted, against his head coach's declaration. "Well of course, according to the head coach. I'm just saying, as a defender, if I was gameplanning for the Eagles, I probably wouldn't go low for the quarterback, but that's where there's a little bit of discretion from a player's standpoint of where you hit somebody.

"But if somebody's running a zone-read [usually] and I want to scare them out of it, I'm gonna hit the quarterback."

All points which Sam Bradford himself might agree with, but he and left tackle Jason Peters both insisted that night and the day after that the intent of the play, going for Bradford's knees, was dirty.

Kelly said his team doesn't run the zone-read option offense as much as is thought, and any perception that they do may be the driving force behind calls made and calls interpreted in the future. He also noted that it could be a problem this season if referees are assuming that any handoff in the shotgun formation is thought to be a zone-read play when it need not be. 

That, he fears, could result in more hits on his fragile quarterback that officials think are legal when they aren't.