Roughing the QB or illegal helmet contact

[john_faz]

Last week, I called B78 for roughing the passer when he used his helmet to spear the QB. However, the timing of the hit was not late. I decided to go with the more accepted roughing call but maybe I should have just called the illegal helmet contact. I realize the only difference is the automatic first down, which in this case did not matter because it was 2nd and 10.

However, I wanted to get some feedback on whether Referees default to roughing on questionable hits on the QB. Also, in terms of mechanics could I have signaled both the Roughing call followed by illegal helmet contact signal to add clarification?

Any thoughts.