More bad officiating! The Steelers’ broken offense! Dion Dawkins’ flop! Quentin Johnston’s drop! 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 it’s important to point out the dumb plays, boneheaded decisions, and officiating errors that make football all too human.
Folks, it’s time for the Worst of the Week for Week 11 of the 2023 NFL season.
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.
This Odell Beckham Jr. “hold” just wiped off a 68-yard Zay Flowers TD. You be the judge: Good call or bad call. pic.twitter.com/BTrNlzNynD
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.
The NFL has assigned referee Adrian Hill to Week 10 Saints-Vikings game. New Orleans is 2-1 with him at referee, while the Vikings are 2-3:
Don’t expect many penalty flags to fly on Sunday. The NFL has assigned referee Adrian Hill to Week 10’s game between the New Orleans Saints and Minnesota Vikings — and Hill’s crew averages just 10.5 penalty markers per game, fourth-fewest among the 17 officiating crews.
If you’re curious, the Saints are 2-1 in games with Hill at referee, who was promoted to the post back in 2019 after nine years as a field judge, side judge, and line judge. The Vikings are 2-3. This will be the first game in 2023 either team has played with Hill on the field; the Saints haven’t seen him since their Dec. 27, 2021 loss to the Miami Dolphins.
But that doesn’t mean this will be a penalty-free game. Hill’s crew has fouled visiting teams 50 times compared to just 34 infractions on home squads. They have thrown more penalty flags for false starts (15) than anything else, so the Saints need to be mindful of that when they have the football. They were fouled just once last week for a season-low 5 yards, which was a false start penalty on tight end Juwan Johnson.
Fourth-year NFL referee Adrian Hill and his crew have been assigned as the officials for the Kansas City Chiefs’ Week 12 game against the Los Angeles Rams according to Football Zebras.
Hill began his career as a line judge in 2010 and has held virtually every officiating role since. He was first promoted to referee ahead of the 2019 NFL season. This is only the second Chiefs game that Hill has ever officiated as a referee. He last officiated their Week 6 matchup against the Washington Football Team (now Washington Commanders) in the 2021 NFL season. Kansas City won that game 31-17.
Hill’s crew is averaging 13 flags per game through nine games officiated this season, which is right around the average for officiating crews this season. Their crew is tied for the fifth most dismissed penalties this season with 22 on the year. This crew has heavily favored the home team this season with 11 more penalties called on the away team.
Offensive holding (25), false start (18) and delay of game (10) are the penalties that have been called with the greatest frequency by this crew. That’s probably not ideal for a Los Angeles team that could be trotting out their 11th different combination of offensive linemen in Week 12. Add in the fact that they have a backup quarterback and are playing in the loudest stadium in the NFL and you can expect Hill’s crew to add to their tally of holding, false start and delay of game calls.
The New Orleans Saints will work with referee Adrian Hill again in Week 17’s Panthers game after he officiated their Week 16 Vikings matchup
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Here’s an odd one: the New Orleans Saints will be working with the same officiating crew in Week 17’s regular season finale as they met in Week 16, per Football Zebras. Referee Adrian Hill and his staff have been assigned to the Saints’ upcoming match with the Carolina Panthers a week after they officiated the Saints’ NFC South-clinching win over the Minnesota Vikings.
It’s unusual for the same officials to work a game with the same team in back-to-back weeks, but it isn’t unprecedented. Just this year we’ve seen referee Alex Kemp’s staff work two Green Bay Packers games in Weeks 14 and 15; the Packers won both games but were fouled 17 times for 118 penalty yards against 11 fouls for 96 penalty yards on their opponents.
Still, it’s strange to say the least. Hill’s crew is the only NFL officiating staff working games involving the same team in Weeks 16 and 17.
Per NFLPenalties.com, Hill’s crew has thrown the fourth-most penalty flags per game (12.1), averaging the seventh-most penalty yards per game (105.0), so he’s used to getting his share of the spotlight. For the curious, he’s been on the mic for two games with New Orleans earlier this year: their Dec. 6 game with the Atlanta Falcons (the Saints drew 10 fouls for 79 yards, the Falcons had one 15-yard roughing the passer penalty) and the Christmas Day game matchup with the Vikings (New Orleans had 4 fouls for 38 yards, Minnesota received 3 fouls for 20 yards).
With playoff seeding on the line for so many teams, the NFL is putting their higher-rated crews in position to make sure things go off without a hitch. Here’s hoping for a clean, fairly-called game to send the Saints into the postseason — ideally as the No. 1 seed.
The NFL has assigned 11-year veteran official Adrian Hill and his crew to work Week 16’s New Orleans Saints game, in which the black and gold will welcome the Minnesota Vikings to the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. Hill, 56, was promoted to referee in 2019 after spending the bulk of his career as a field judge or side judge, with his first four years on the job as a line judge.
Hill has only worked one Saints game before in his capacity as a referee; that would be Dec. 6’s matchup between the Saints and Atlanta Falcons, which New Orleans won 21-16 at the Superdome. The Saints were fouled 10 times for 79 yards in that tilt, while Atlanta drew just one 15-yard roughing the passer penalty.
That’s an odd disparity, and it’s out of character for Hill’s crew on the year so far. Home teams have been penalized 83 times compared to 91 fouls for road teams in the games Hill has worked. Maybe things will go a little more smoothly in Week 16.
They’ll certainly be hoping for it. The Saints are tied for the seventh-most penalties in the NFL (90), but they lead the league in penalty yards (936) as one of the only two teams to yield 900 or more on the year so far — the other being the 1-13 Jacksonville Jaguars. New Orleans’ fouls have overwhelmingly come from the defensive side of the ball, where they’ve been flagged 58 times for 666 penalty yards, ranking worst in the NFL in each category.
Much of that is due to spot-fouls for defensive pass interference; the Saints have received 17 of those for 314 yards, again leading the league. It’s been an area of frustration throughout the year, aggravated by the Saints offense ranking 12th-worst in benefiting from the same calls on the other team.
We could see a lot of Hill on Friday. His crew has thrown the second-most penalty flags (174) to rank second-most in penalty yards (1,517). Here’s hoping they do a better job keeping their laundry clean and Hill doesn’t eat up too much screen time.
The Houston Texans and the Denver Broncos get ready for their Week 14 tilt, and we get you with Vic Fangio facts and referee Adrian Hill facts.
The Houston Texans and the Denver Broncos get ready for their Week 14 tilt at NRG Stadium, and we get ready with another quarter of facts on the way to a full 100. Next, we take a look at Denver coach Vic Fangio, who used to be the Texans’ defensive coordinator from 2002-05, along with some facts surrounding referee Adrian Hill.
51. Fangio will be the third former Texans coordinator the club will face. Here is how other coordinators have fared:
Kyle Shanahan: 1-0
Mike Vrabel: 1-1
52. Fangio is the first Broncos coach to have started 4-8 in his first season.
53. Fangio is the first Bears defensive coordinator since Buddy Ryan to be hired straight to a head coaching gig from Chicago.
54. If Fangio can get a win against the Texans, he will join Mike Shanahan, Eric Studesville, and Gary Kubiak as the only Broncos coaches to have defeated Houston in their first try.
55. Fangio is 1/5 Broncos coaches to have started two different quarterbacks making their first career starts in the same season.
56. Fangio is 1/5 AP Assistant Coach of the Year Award winners to have been hired as a head coach the following year. The only one who was not was Wade Phillips in 2015.
57. Fangio is 2-5 against playoff-winning coaches with a 1-3 record on the road.
58. Fangio is 0/2 on challenges for his career with both of those challenges related to pass interference.
59. The Broncos are tied with the Ravens for the 13th-fewest penalties in the NFL with 81.
60. The Broncos have the third-worst third down conversion rate in the NFL at 29.5%.
61. Denver has the sixth-lowest red zone conversion rate in the league at 44.8%.
62. The Broncos have the fifth-worst starting field position in the NFL at the 26.8-yard line.
63. Denver is tied with the Bears for the ninth-lowest rate of drives ending in a turnover at 9.7%.
