Perhaps the strangest thing to happen during the Week 9 contest between the Tennessee Titans and Los Angeles Rams was the officials changing a penalty that helped avoid cornerback Jalen Ramsey being ejected from the game.
On the second drive of the contest, Ramsey was flagged for what was originally called an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, so when he was flagged for another right before the half, the thought was he was gone.
However, Ramsey was not ejected because officials decided to change his original penalty to an unnecessary roughness one, something Titans head coach Mike Vrabel said he had never seen before.
“Maybe it’s happened before. It’s never happened personally to me before,” Vrabel said, per John Glennon of SI. “So, I don’t have anything to go by, right? I don’t know what the protocol is when they change something.”
“(It was like), `Oh yeah, we changed it.’ Okay, well, let somebody else know … I’m just trying to follow the rules.”
Per Glennon, after throwing the first flag on Ramsey, officials had decided it was the wrong call, thus changing it to an unnecessary roughness afterwards, which was then confirmed by the league office.
However, that change was not communicated to Vrabel until after the second flag on the star cornerback, hence his surprise and the understandable confusion, which was shared by those of us watching the game.
“We understand the job they have,” Vrabel said of the officials. “I want to be part of the solution. I know how fast the game is. I know how fast it is by standing behind those guys in practice. It moves at a fast pace, and some calls are tough.
“They all have a job, and they’re part of the game. Just like I make mistakes and the players make mistakes, the officials are going to make mistakes. We’re going to have to live with it and understand that it’s a part of our game, just as coaching and playing is.”
Thankfully the decision didn’t end up impacting the final result, as the Titans were still able to beat the Rams on Sunday night, 28-16.
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