Riley Moss has one of the toughest jobs in the NFL, and the microscope of scrutiny will always be amplified on him playing opposite Patrick Surtain II. In Sunday’s win against the Kansas City Chiefs, Moss was penalized three times.
The Broncos veteran cornerback was called for defensive pass interference twice, and hit with one illegal contact penalty that wiped out a Jahdae Barron pick six. You can make an argument that the illegal contact call was suspect, because Moss is playing catch technique against the in-breaking receiver who then tries to pivot outside.
His first pass interference call was thrown from the back judge in the endzone, but not thrown by the side judge who had the upclose view of it. Certainly, there have been a handful of PI calls this year that have been suspect calls, where Moss is playing great technique, but the reality is, this is how NFL officials view his game. To date, he’s been called for PI seven times, with two of them being declined.
Following Sunday’s game, Moss was open about how he’s being officiated and how he needs to adjust moving forward.
“Listen, I will absolutely own up to the last one, the underthrown ball,” Moss said. “I can’t be grabbing him like that. It’s tough. It’s already a tough position, and I have to be able to, in those situations, play the ball. In practice, it’s going to be a big emphasis. We are going to put the boxing gloves on me, we’re going to tape them up. So there’s no chance… It’s a repetitive thing. People can have their opinion on it, but me as a professional athlete, I need to be able to realize that, OK, this has happened multiple times. Yes, it’s unfair sometimes, and it sucks. But I can’t be in that position as much as I have been. So that is something to work on. Again, everyone has their opinion, but as a competitor and as an athlete, I have to own up to some of it and get better from it.”
This offseason, Moss added nearly eight pounds of muscle and focused on getting stronger so that he could play physically at the point of attack against bigger wide receivers. In this game, you have to play aggressive despite how limited defensive players are when it comes to contact against offensive players.
Aside from that, Moss is one of the Broncos best hard-hat defensive players who not only plays the pass aggressively, but he comes up aggressive in run support, which most corners shy away from.
If he can adjust his technique and get in phase without grabbing at the last second, he’ll be just fine.