Barstool rips Van Ness roughing call on Dak Prescott

Green Bay was up 23-7 in the 4th quarter at Lambeau and the defense had just come up with another pick. Then the flag came in.

Barstool Sports

@barstoolsports

Welcome to the year 2026 This is roughing the passer now

That's the whole play. Van Ness comes free, gets there as the ball leaves, and Prescott goes down. No helmet shot, no late hit, no body slam. It's a pass rusher doing exactly what a pass rusher is paid to do, and it got called roughing the passer anyway. Craig Wrolstad's crew had the game, and the flag took away what would have been Valentine's interception and gave Dallas a fresh set of downs.

Eric Hubbs

@BarstoolHubbs

We’ve completely lost the plot with roughing the passer. What the fuck man

Hubbs had the only reasonable reaction, and he was far from alone. The broadcast angle makes it look even worse, because the camera cuts right to Valentine after the flag comes in, the guy who just lost a pick he earned, with the scoreboard reading Dallas 7, Green Bay 23.

Barstool Gambling

@stoolgambling

Roughing the passer?!?

It's not like the Packers needed the extra turnover to win. Evan Williams and rookie Brandon Cisse had already picked off Prescott, Green Bay led 17-0 at halftime, and the Packers closed it out 23-13 to move to 4-2 while Dallas fell to 2-4. It was the 1st time since 2016 that Green Bay held 3 straight opponents to 14 points or fewer. A defense playing like that should get a 3rd interception on the stat sheet, not have it erased by a brush on a dropback.

And it wasn't a one-off. Earlier on the same Sunday, Kansas City had a Chris Roland-Wallace interception of Justin Herbert taken away by a roughing call on Ashton Gillotte, and replays didn't do that flag any favors either. That's 2 picks wiped out in one weekend on hits that barely looked like fouls. Defenders are being told to get home, and when they do, they're punished for it.

The league is always going to protect quarterbacks, and that's fine. But there's a line between protecting the guy and making the sack illegal, and the Van Ness flag was on the wrong side of it. Green Bay won comfortably, so nobody will be fined over a lost game. The real question is whether the competition committee ever admits the standard has drifted before one of these flags decides a game in January.