Category: NFL Officiating

Browns denied a safety against Steelers because Shawn Hochuli’s crew didn’t see it

Shawn Hochuli’s officiating crew failed to give the Cleveland Browns a safety against the Pittsburgh Steelers — because they didn’t see it.

You’re not going to believe this, folks, but we have more weird officiating in the National Football League. This time, it’s Shawn Hochuli’s crew in the game between the Cleveland Browns and the Pittsburgh Steelers.

With 10:28 left in the first quarter, Steelers quarterback Kenny Pickett was sacked by Browns edge terror Myles Garrett. The box score will tell you that Pickett was down at his own one-yard line, but it certainly looked as if Pickett was sacked in the end zone for a safety, and two points for the Browns.

CBS Sports rules analyst and former NFL referee Gene Steratore agreed.

Per Tom Withers of the Associated Press, Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski threw the challenge flag, but that didn’t do much.

If there’s a missed call, and the officiating crew misses the challenge flag, what is a team supposed to do?

Sadly, this was not the inly instance in which Stefanski’s team would have legitimate issue with Hochuli and his crew.

Twitter reacts strongly to multiple blown calls in Ravens-Bengals game

Adrian Hill’s officiating crew blew multiple calls in Thursday night’s Ravens-Bengals game, and Twitter was ready with all of the evidence.

It is a day ending in “Y,’ so there’s clearly bad officiating going on in the NFL, and that’s certainly been true in Thursday night’s game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Cincinnati Bengals. The culprit in this particular day ending in “Y” is referee Adrian Hill and his crew, who made more than one atrocious call.

The first blown call took a touchdown off the board for the Ravens. With 5:15 left in the first half, Lamar Jackson hit receiver Zay Flowers on a quick pass, and Flowers did the rest, taking the ball for what certainly looked like a 68-yard touchdown.

Somehow, Hill’s crew called holding on receiver Odell Beckham Jr., and the touchdown was nullified.

Then, with 54 seconds left in the first half, Jackson threw an incomplete pass to Flowers, but Bengals cornerback DJ Turner was flagged for defensive pass interference. If you can see defensive pass interference anywhere on this play, you have better eyes than we do.

Hill’s crew has not been impressive this season, but the Thursday night work has been particularly sub-par, and Twitter was letting the refs have it.

Worst of the Week for Week 10: Patriots and Giants bottom out, more bad officiating, Frank Reich

Frank Reich, the Patriots and Giants find the bottom, more horrid officiating, and one weird fumble return. It’s time for the NFL’s Worst of the Week!

Football is a wonderful, thrilling, inspiring game that can lift us to new heights in our lives.

But football is also a weird, inexplicable, at times downright stupid game that may force you to perform Keith Moon-level furniture destruction in your own living room.

So, as much as we at Touchdown Wire endeavor to write about what makes the game great, there are also times when itā€™s important to point out the dumb plays, boneheaded decisions, and officiating errors that make football all too human.

Folks, itā€™s time for the Worst of the Week for Week 10 of the 2023 NFL season.

Bad officiating cheats Packers on Kenny Pickett’s backward pass

The Packers were cheated out of a possession against the Steelers after Scott Novak’s crew completely whiffed on a backward pass ruling.

Rule 8, Section 7, Article 1 of the NFL Rule Book states that “A runner may throw a backward pass at any time. Players of either team may advance after catching a backward pass, or recovering a backward pass after it touches the ground.”

Apparently, referee Scott Novak’s crew didn’t get the memo in Sunday’s game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers. With 3:34 left in the first half, Steelers quarterback Kenny Pickett pretty clearly threw a backward pass to running back Jaylen Warren. The play was ruled an incomplete forward pass, the Packers reviewed it. and the call was upheld.

Broadcaster Charles Davis had a serious problem with that, and Davis was not wrong. Rules analyst and former NFL referee Gene Steratore tried to state a contrary case, but there’s only so much you can gloss over stuff like this.

I dunno, Gene… it looked pretty clear right away from this angle.

Steelers QB Kenny Pickett injured on textbook roughing the passer… with no penalty

Steelers quarterback Kenny Pickett was injured on a textbook roughing the passer call… but no flag was thrown against the Jaguars.

The most interesting thing about the NFL’s rules for roughing the passer (which you can read here) is this proviso at the end:

When in doubt about a roughness call or potentially dangerous tactic against the quarterback, the Referee should always call roughing the passer.

Referee Alan Eck and his crew didn’t get THAT memo before they started calling Sunday’s Pittsburgh Steelers-Jacksonville Jaguars game. There were multiple questionable hits on Steelers quarterback Kenny Pickett before this hit by Jaguars defensive tackle Adam Gotsis with 17 seconds left in the first half.

Pickett was injured on the play, and this wasn’t the only time Eck and his guys averted their eyes to what might have been construed as extracurricular activity. Dave Dameshek, our buddy who is an avowed Steelers homer, nonetheless has some salient points below, and from both sides. Steelers linebacker Keanu Neal was flagged for roughing the passer on the first play detailed, and then… crickets.

Eck’s crew had called four roughing the passer penalties coming into this game, so your guess is as good as ours regarding what appeared to be missed.

Mike Tomlin is asking the question we’d all like to ask.

Officials miss obvious Orlando Brown hold on crucial Joseph Ossai penalty

AFC Championship game officials missed an obvious Orlando Brown hold on the game-deciding Joseph Ossai penalty.

With 17 seconds left in the AFC Championship game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Cincinnati Bengals, Patrick Mahomes scrambled to his right on third-and-4 from the Cincinnati 47-yard line, trying to get the ball sa far as possible so that Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker might be able to break the game’s 20-20 tie, and send Kansas City back to the Super Bowl for the third time in four seasons.

Butker was able to make a 45-yard field goal with three seconds left in the game to do just that, but the Chiefs were greatly aided by this unnecessary roughness penalty called on Cincinnati linebacker Joseph Ossai, who pushed Mahomes after he was already out of bounds. .

That penalty took the ball all the way down to the Cincinnati 27-yard line, making Butker’s game-winner an eventual reality. And for all the “interesting” calls referee Ron Torbert’s crew did and did not make in this game, that one was legitimate.

However, there was a non-call on that very same play that could have changed the complexion of the game, and the Super Bowl, had it been called — which it clearly should have been.

If you watch Chiefs left tackle Orlando Brown hook Bengals edge-rusher Trey Hendrickson around the neck as the play developed… well, that’s about as clear a holding penalty as you’ll ever see.

Has the penalty been called, the Chiefs would have faced third-and-14 10 yards back from the start of the play, and at that point, barring a Patrick Mahomes miracle (which is never entirely out of the question), we’re playing for overtime here.

Did Ossai make a rookie mistake? Absolutely. But Torbert and his crew are an alleged “all-star” team with decades of combined experience. What would their excuses be for missing a hold this blatantly obvious?

NFL announces Carl Cheffers as Super Bowl LVII referee

Carl Cheffers will be the referee for Super Bowl LVII. You can draw your own conclusions.

If the Kansas City Chiefs get past the Cincinnati Bengals to make it to Super Bowl LVII, Kansas City super-defensive lineman Chris Jones might want to be very, very careful when going after either Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts, or San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy.

Why? Because on Tuesday, the NFL announced that Carl Cheffers will be the referee for the big game this time around.

Let’s go back to the Chiefs’ Week 5 30-29 win over the Las Vegas Raiders, in which Jones was busted for a roughing the passer penalty that — like most roughing the passer penalties — didn’t make a lot of sense in the moment.

The call negated the sack, and the Chiefs’ fumble recovery. Reaction was swift, and severe. Cheffers and his crew were serenaded with boos throughout the rest of the game, which seemed to make Cheffers a bit uneasy as the game progressed.

Everybody from FOX Sports analyst and former NFL VP of Officiating Mike Pereira, to Dallas Cowboys pass-rushing star Micah Parsons, to occasional NFL analyst and full-time conservative pundit Tony Dungy were in agreement in their disagreement.

It didn’t help that Cheffers couldn’t even get Jones’ number right when he called the “penalty.”

Micah Parsons rips brutal roughing the passer call on Chiefs’ Chris Jones

Make what you will of the NFL’s insistence that officials are rewarded with the biggest games for their top performances… we’ve all seen how that works out. That said, Cheffers is just one of a number of officials who have seriously underperformed in the 2022 season, so maybe this is a case of the best of the worst?

Officials miss obvious penalty by Asante Samuel Jr. on Trevor Lawrence interception

Officials missed an obvious illegal contact penalty on Trevor Lawrence’s second interception, leading to more concern about NFL officiating.

Saturday night’s wild-card playoff game between the Los Angeles Chargers and the Jacksonville Jaguars did not begin as anybody expected. Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence threw interceptions on each of Jacksonville’s two drives, and the Chargers scored 10 points on those two picks.

Lawrence’s first interception was entirely legitimate – defensive lineman Sebastian Joseph-Day deflected Lawrence’s pass, and linebacker Drue Tranquill picked off the ball from the air.

Chargers pick off 2 Trevor Lawrence passes in first 5 minutes

However, the officiating crew, led by referee Shawn Smith, missed an obvious penalty on Lawrence’s second interception — which, if called, would have negated the pick. Receiver Zay Jones was Lawrence’s target, and Smith’s crew missed what was an obvious hold by cornerback Asante Samuel Jr. on Jones. Samuel is a good player, but it’s easier to pick off a pass when you’ve got your receiver in a passionate embrace.

Coming into the playoffs, several NFL coaches and executives had expressed concern about the state of officiating in the league. Based on that horrible no-call, we’d have to say that things are not going to work themselves out on the field

The NFL is now Very Concerned about officiating. What took the NFL so long?

The NFL is now Very Concerned about officiating. What took the NFL so long?

The NFL has decided to become concerned about officiating after Week 18’s Seahawks-Rams game. We say, what took the NFL so long?

Several big-time shot-callers in the NFL are now Very Concerned about the state of officiating in the league based on the performance of Craig Wrolstad’s crew in Week 18’s game between the Los Angeles Rams and the Seattle Seahawks. Seattle won that game 19-16 in overtime, and the result put the Seahawks in the playoffs, knocking the Detroit Lions out even before Detroit’s Sunday night game against the Green Bay Packers.

Multiple executives and coaches told ESPN’s Adam Schefter that the officiating had several lapses, all in Seattle’s favor, and all key elements in Seattle’s eventual win.

One anonymous source said that it was “The worst officiated game of the year.”

Schefter wrote that it wasn’t just the Rams and the Lions who were upset by the officiating in this particular game — the NFL’s Competition Committee also stood up and took notice.

From Schefter’s report:

One source told ESPN this week that the NFL must do a better job of screening, hiring and training its officials; the league can’t have games in which teams’ seasons are on the line and have questionable and impactful calls such as the ones in the Rams-Seahawks Week 18 game.

Officiating is an imperfect science, but the source said to ESPN that there should be ways to mitigate those types of mistakes.

All true, but where has this outrage been all season? NFL officiating has been a major problem all along, and Week 18 wasn’t the worst week. Not even close. You can go back to Week 15, when multiple crews blew multiple calls that affected games to various degrees.

The worst officiating moments from a NFL Week 15 that was full of them

There were the two fumble recovery touchdowns by Minnesota Vikings cornerback Chandon Sullivan that were called back — the only reason those didn’t affect Minnesota’s eventual win over the Indianapolis Colts is that the Vikings performed the greatest comeback win in NFL history.

There was the touchdown pass from Las Vegas Raiders quarterback Derek Carr to receiver Keelan Cole late in the Raiders’ game against the New England Patriots that shouldn’t have been a touchdown upon review — Cole’s second foot went out of bounds, but the crew didn’t see sufficient evidence to overturn the touchdown call — even though there was ample evidence on the FOX television replays.

And there were the series of officiating bungles that helped the New York Giants beat the Washington Commanders — primarily an obvious and missed pass interference penalty on New York cornerback Darnay Holmes — which referee John Hussey referred to as a “judgment call.”

Talk about a series of officiating decisions that affected playoff seedings? The 9-7-1 Giants wound up with the NFC’s six-seed, while the 8-8-1 Commanders were not in the postseason. Had Washington won that game, they would have flipped records with the Giants, and as the teams’ tie game was against each other, that’s another example of officiating deciding in part who gets to play in the tournament.

We have horrible roughing the passer penalties just about every week, based on rules that are flawed by design. We have officials who are confused about which team they want to penalize. And we have a VP of Officiating in former referee Walt Anderson who tends to take over postgame pool reports, leaving the officials in question to skate without any real public accountability.

So, it’s nice that some people in the league are concerned about the state of officiating as the postseason begins. Not that it will have any effect on the quality of work this weekend and beyond, but our question is: Where has this concern been all season? Because what happened in the Seahawks-Rams game was more par for the course than any kind of outlier in performance.

Did the Patriots get jobbed by the forward progress rule?

It certainly looked as if Patriots running back Rhamondre Stevenson had his forward progress stopped before he fumbled against the Bengals.

The Minnesota Vikings’ historic comeback Week 15 win over the Indianapolis Colts was made even more remarkable by the fact that Vikings cornerback Chandon Sullivan had two fumble return touchdowns called back. One was reversed by an incorrect down by contact call, but it was the first that is especially interesting for our present purposes.

With 7:03 left in the first half, and the Colts already up 23-0, Indianapolis quarterback Matt Ryan threw a short pass to receiver Michael Pittman, who fumbled at the Indianapolis 40-yard line. At that point, Sullivan picked the ball up and rumbled for a touchdown.

Or so he thought. Referee Tra Blake ruled that Pittmanā€™s forward progress had been stopped, negating the touchdown.

ā€œThe ruling on the field was that the runnerā€™s forward progress had been stopped,ā€ Blake told pool reporter Chip Scoggins of theĀ Minneapolis Star TribuneĀ after the game. ā€œOnce heā€™s wrapped up by the defender and his forward progress is stopped, the play is over. So, any action that happens subsequently after that is nullified because the play is dead. That was the ruling on the field.ā€

In this case, the hit by linebacker Brian Asamoah drove Pittman back, and Pittman fumbled. It was a close call, to put it kindly.

Fans of the New England Patriots are wondering where that kind of consideration is for their team. On Saturday, New England lost to the Cincinnati Bengals, 22-18, and there was one play on the Patriots’ final — and potentially game-winning — drive that people will be talking about for a while. With 1:05 left in the game, running back Rhamondre Stevenson tried to make something happen from the Cincinnati five-yard line. Instead, Stevenson was driven back three yards before he lost control of the ball, which was recovered by defensive lineman B.J. Hill.

Now, if the Pittman fumble was saved by the forward progress rule, how is it that the Stevenson play wasn’t? Here’s what the NFL Rule Book has to say about forward progress:

ARTICLE 1. FORWARD PROGRESS. The Forward Progress of a runner or airborne receiver is the point at which his advance toward his opponentā€™s goal ends and is the spot at which the ball is declared dead by rule, irrespective of the runner or receiver being pushed or carried backward by an opponent.Ā 

ARTICLE 2. FORWARD, BEYOND, OR IN ADVANCE. Forward, Beyond, or In Advance Of are terms that designate a point nearer the goal line of the defense. Backward or Behind designate a point nearer the goal line of the offense. A pass parallel to a yard line, or an offensive player moving parallel to it at the snap, is considered backward.

So, it’s a judgment call on the part of the officials, and in this case, referee Craig Wrolstad’s crew didn’t think it had happened. And unless a potential forward progress call results in a scoring play, forward progress is not reviewable at any point in the game.

The verdict? Yes, Wrolstad probably should have called forward progress in this case. But when the rule book says that it’s up to the referee’s discretion… well, this season, you never know what you’re going to get in that case.