Tag: Al Riveron

Why did the officials overturn Texans WR Will Fuller’s touchdown against the Vikings?

NFL senior VP of officiating Al Riveron provided an explanation for why Houston Texans WR Will Fuller’s touchdown catch was overturned in Week 4.

Houston Texans receiver Will Fuller seemingly caught a 5-yard touchdown pass in the left back corner of the end zone to pull the Texans’ within two Sunday during the club’s 31-23 loss to the Minnesota Vikings Sunday at NRG Stadium.

However, after further review, when referee Brad Rogers went under the hood and talked with New York in the league’s replay command center with NFL vice president of officiating Al Riveron, the play was overturned and ruled incomplete. Because it was fourth-and-goal, the result was turnover on downs and game over as Houston had no timeouts remaining with 1:12 to play.

Riveron provided an explanation to the Houston Chronicle’s John McClain in a pool report after the game.

“The ruling on the field was that of a touchdown,” Riveron said. “When we looked at it, the receiver is going to the ground. And if he is ruled as going to the ground, he must maintain control of the football after hitting the ground. And what he does is, the minute the football touches the ground, he loses control of the football. He does not maintain control. Therefore, we overturned it to an incomplete pass.”

The acrobatic catch from Fuller was impressive enough, but it didn’t count to give the Texans a shot to tie the game with a two-pointer. The Texans fell to 0-4 on the year as the Vikings moved to 1-3.

Bears WR Allen Robinson isn’t happy about his overturned TD

The Bears had two touchdowns that were negated in the second half, including Allen Robinson’s 21-yard score. And he’s not happy.

[sendtonews_embed video_id=”npXFsWcDZt-985071-7498″]

The Chicago Bears have pulled out some close victories to start the 2020 season, their latest coming against the Atlanta Falcons — a 30-26 win — on Sunday.

It was a game where there were several questionable calls that affected the Bears, including two Chicago touchdowns that were negated in the second half.

One of those belonged to receiver Allen Robinson, who had himself a day with 10 receptions for 123 yards and a touchdown. With 6:29 left in the third quarter, Nick Foles found Robinson for a 21-yard strike in the right corner of the end zone. It was another contested situation, where Robinson has shined since joining the Bears. Only, this one didn’t go his way.

Both Robinson and Falcons cornerback Darqueze Dennard had control of the ball before Dennard ripped it away from Robinson. But given Robinson had possession of the ball — and the tiebreaker goes to the receiver — everyone believed the touchdown would stand. Only it didn’t.

It was a play that upset Bears fans everywhere. And Robinson wasn’t happy about the call either, as he let reporters know exactly how he felt after the game.

The play was initially ruled a touchdown, which means that there would’ve needed to be visual evidence to overturn it. So why was it overturned?

“When we look at it, we have to start with what is the ruling on the field,” NFL senior vice president of officiating Al Riveron told reporters. “We can see that it is clear that the process of the catch is not over. Since the process of the catch is not over, the defender still has a right to the ball. And we see that the defender does get the ball and come up with it. Therefore, we reversed it because we had clear and obvious visual evidence that the process of the catch was not over. We changed the ruling to an interception.”

But given that it was a 50-50 ball with both Robinson and Dennard having possession, the rule states that the receiver gets the ball, right?

“Again, he has to complete the process of a catch,” Riveron said. “And we had clear and obvious evidence that he does not complete the process of a catch.”

It’s a call that will be debated, but it doesn’t matter. Because, in the end, the Bears were able to come away with the win and keep their undefeated record alive.

Al Riveron explains why there was no OPI foul in final play of Saints-Vikings

NFL officiating chief Al Riveron explained why Vikings tight end Kyle Rudolph was not fouled for pass interference against the Saints.

The New Orleans Saints just wrapped up a game, so NFL officiating supervisor Al Riveron had to call in and explain what happened at the end. It seems the Saints can’t just play a game without some sort of officiating controversy clouding things.

In this case, questions surrounded a possible push-off by Minnesota Vikings tight end Kyle Rudolph against Saints cornerback P.J. Williams on the final play of the game, which could have constituted offensive pass interference and given the Saints defense another opportunity to get off the field. No penalty was called for it, however, and Riveron defended the decision.

“None of that contact rises to the level of a foul,” Riveron told The Athletic’s Larry Holder. As a scoring play, it was automatically reviewed by Riveron’s office in New York, and he expressed confidence in the different angles Fox provided them.

“Yes, FOX was great,” Riveron said. “They gave us every angle that they had pertaining to the play. So, we’re very comfortable with what we saw. Nothing came through afterward that we had not seen prior to making the ruling.”

It’s ridiculous that these debates about officiating keep trailing the Saints. Human errors are going to happen in every game — it’s part of the argument in favor not automating more of the officiating process — but it’s outrageous that they keep happening to the Saints in the highest-leverage moments. Wouldn’t it be great if they could just have a game and win or lose without any question of to what degree the referees got involved?

[vertical-gallery id=26470]

Studs and Duds, Week 17: Jared Cook and Tre’Quan Smith impress

The New Orleans Saints beat the Carolina Panthers, thanks to big plays from Jared Cook and Tre’Quan Smith on a quiet day for Michael Thomas.

Week 17 marked the end of the NFL regular season, with the New Orleans Saints ending it on a high note by demolishing the Carolina Panthers 42-10. The Saints have been clicking on all fronts during their recent games, and are peaking at just the right time. The 32-point lead the Saints held over the Panthers was the largest margin in team history. Defensively, New Orleans held All-Pro running back Christian McCaffrey in check all afternoon. All signs are pointing in the right direction for this team as they head into the playoffs.

While there were plenty of highlights from the game, there were a few performances from Saints players that they would like to have back. Here our three studs, and two duds from Sunday afternoon’s game.

STUD: Alvin Kamara, running back

Jeremy Brevard-USA TODAY Sports

Kamara has not looked himself after missing time with a few injuries earlier this season, but that changed against the Panthers this week. His statline of 39 rushing yards, two rushing touchdowns and two receptions for 18 yards may not be that impressive, but it doesn’t tell the entire story.

Kamara’s elusiveness and balance through contact has allowed him to be one of the hardest players to tackle in the league. He has been missing his “it factor” for weeks, but we saw a flash of it last week, and his skills were on brighter display in Week 17. He bounced off of defenders and shed a few tackles, starting to look like his old self. Furthermore, his two touchdowns on the day doubled his season total. Kamara is returning to form at just the right time for New Orleans, as the team now has a daunting, but beatable path ahead of them in the playoffs.

Pages: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5

Saints were hurt by a pass-interference non-call in a game they didn’t even play

The latest entry in the New Orleans Saints’ exhaustive feud with NFL officiating chief Al Riveron sprung from a game they didn’t even play.

[jwplayer 1qL1vXNd-ThvAeFxT]

Stop reading if you’ve heard this before, but the NFL’s over-complicated officiating process made the New Orleans Saints draw the short straw. The Saints needed the Seattle Seahawks to defeat the San Francisco 49ers so that New Orleans could clinch a first-round bye in the playoffs, and they nearly got it when Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson targeted tight end Jacob Hollister in the end zone. But Hollister’s arm was trapped by 49ers linebacker Fred Warner, and the pass fell incomplete. No penalty flags for defensive pass interference followed it.

And the officiating crew on-hand didn’t stop the game to review what happened. Neither did NFL officiating czar Al Riveron call in from his New York office, as he is supposed to do following offseason rules changes. The league instituted these changes after Riveron botched last year’s NFC championship game non-call between the Saints and Los Angeles Rams, and he didn’t learn anything from an experience that should have cost him his job.

If a flag had been thrown, the Seahawks would have had time to run another play or two from near the goal-line, potentially giving them the lead as time expired. Instead, they ended up turning it over on downs, and the 49ers won, clinching the first seed. The Saints were forced to begin preparing for the wild-card Minnesota Vikings, and the Seahawks had to focus on a road trip against the Philadelphia Eagles.

After the game ended, Riveron claimed that he did briefly review the play, but didn’t see enough from the NBC broadcast angles to justify stopping the game for further review with instant-replay.

“Well, we actually looked at it here in New York. We had a great look. NBC gives us a great look of the entire route,” Riveron told Tim Booth of the Associated Press. “So, we actually did perform a review, but based on what we saw, we didn’t see enough to stop the game. But we did review it.”

In other words, Riveron didn’t commit his due diligence. He saw the broadcast angle and didn’t think it was worth his time to review one of the biggest plays in the final game of the decade, with serious playoff implications for multiple games. If things played out as he described it, that’s serious neglect of his job responsibilities.

And if anything, Riveron suggested the play may have qualified for a foul on the offense, because the tight end made first contact. He continued: “What we see is, we see the offensive player come in and initiate contact on the defensive player — nothing that rises to the level of a foul which significantly hinders the defender, nothing that is clear and obvious through visual evidence, which hinders the defender. The defender then braces himself.”

That’s a lot of conviction for Riveron to have in a play he spent a few seconds, maybe a full minute at most, considering. But he doubled down on it in Booth’s pool report, saying, “And there is contact then by the defender on the receiver. Again, nothing which rises to the level of a foul based on visual evidence. Nothing happens that rises to the level of a foul while the ball is in the air before it gets there by either player.”

Let’s be clear: the NFL has not gotten these calls and reviews right throughout the season. The problem isn’t that they got this one completely wrong, either (it’s part of it, but not the entire issue). What should concern fans of every team is that Riveron was in position to follow the rule book and do his job, and consciously chose not to, making a snap decision with less information than he could have. He might have changed his mind had he and his crew in New York reviewed the play from different angles, but Riveron decided it wasn’t worth his time.

After a season full of discourse surrounding pass interference review challenges and the influence referees have on games, Riveron took a hard left on the eve of the playoffs to make it all meaningless. What’s the point of having the ability to initiate booth review of a possible pass-interference foul in the game’s closing minutes if the man in charge thinks doing that is beneath him? Who’s to say it won’t happen again in the playoffs, costing a team their Super Bowl hopes? It’s just further proof that Riveron doesn’t deserve this post, and the NFL should take action as soon as possible to course-correct after Riveron messed things up so dangerously.

[vertical-gallery id=26010]