For those who are fed up with the NFL’s rules to protect quarterbacks, the play Buffalo Bills defensive end Jerry Hughes made — or refused to make — is your prime example.

In an amazing scene, Hughes got through to sack the Tennessee Titans’ Marcus Mariota in the fourth quarter on Sunday. He made contact with Mariota, and then let up and made sure the officials saw he wasn’t going to actually tackle him. Too many times this season, due to the increased focus on protecting quarterbacks, any tackle on a quarterback is penalized.

Mariota did what he had to do and scrambled away, then fired a deep pass to the end zone. The pass was incomplete due to very good coverage, but that’s not the point.

Buffalo’s Jerry Hughes let up instead of sacking Marcus Mariota, likely because of rules that punish defenders for contact on the QB. (Getty Images) More

More than any other play this season, it showed how defenders are scared to death to play football right now.

“I made an inside move and I’m underneath the quarterback at that point in time. When I go to wrap you up I’m naturally low so I’m naturally underneath you,” Hughes said, according to New York Upstate. “If I pick him up and finish him, it’s a 15-yard penalty and they might score [a touchdown] on that drive. It’s a tough situation to be in, and I’m very thankful that our secondary played lights out all day and got us off the field.”

What can a coach tell Hughes? Everyone has seen the soft roughing-the-passer penalties, particularly a couple of Green Bay Packers pass rusher Clay Matthews, and don’t want to get a 15-yard penalty and huge fine. When you let defenders know through constant penalties on what look like football hits that they might get punished for making a tackle, eventually they’ll have it in their heads that they shouldn’t do something risky like bring the quarterback to the ground.

Hughes said he asked the official what he could have done.

“I spoke to the white hat and he just told me just to wrap up and drive him backwards and they’ll blow the whistle and mark his forward progress,” Hughes told New York Upstate. “Now I know for the future. I found myself in a very vulnerable position and what do you do? Do you finish the tackle or just hold onto him? Now I know.”

So if you hate the way the NFL is protecting its quarterbacks, take a look at that play. It’s pretty much the peak of defenders feeling like they can’t play football anymore.

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Frank Schwab is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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