Tag: referee

NFL assigns Shawn Smith to referee Week 2’s Saints-Cowboys game

The NFL assigned Shawn Smith to referee Week 2’s Saints-Cowboys game. New Orleans hasn’t seen Smith since 2021, but they’re 3-0 with him on the field:

The NFL assigned Shawn Smith to referee Week 2’s New Orleans Saints vs. Dallas Cowboys game, per Football Zebras. While they haven’t seen him since 2021, the Saints are 3-0 in games with Smith on the field as a referee. They also won a game in 2017 when Smith was working as an umpire. If you’re curious, the Cowboys’ record with Smith as a referee is 2-1. They went 1-1 in two games with him as an umpire.

Smith began his NFL officiating career as an umpire from 2015 to 2017 before getting bumped up to referee in 2018. In Week 1, his crew ranked sixth in flags thrown (17), but just 15 penalties stood — 7 on the home team (for 55 yards) and 8 on the visitors (for 50 yards). However, their 105 penalty yards assessed ranked eighth.

New Orleans and Dallas were two of the most-penalized teams last week so both squads must play with greater discipline in Week 2. Especially along the offensive line. Smith’s crew called more fouls for false starts (4) and offensive holding (4) than anything else, but they were also vigilant for illegal blocks above the waist (2). Those are the kinds of self-inflicted wounds the Saints can’t afford against a team with playoff ambitions like the Cowboys.

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Questionable calls that almost decided the game against Atlanta

The Steelers were on the wrong end of a couple of awful calls on Sunday.

The Pittsburgh Steelers are no strangers to bad calls made by officials.  Some of these calls can decide a game if missed.  There were two calls this Sunday that would have shifted the game script if called correctly. 

George Pickens made a diving catch with 3 minutes 44 seconds remaining in the 3rd quarter.  Viewers could see that A.J. Terrell tried to touch Pickens down and missed, in which George Pickens got up and ran for around 10 yards more.  The referees, however, missed the call and claimed that Pickens was marked down back at the Atlanta 28-yard line. 

The referees’ presence was also felt on the defensive side of the ball.  With 38 seconds remaining in the 1st half of the game, T.J. Watt spectacularly timed the Atlanta Falcons snap and strip-sacked Kirk Cousins, which should have resulted in a turnover for the Steelers.  The referees, however, labeled this impressive feat of timing and patience an offsides penalty.  The very next play, Kirk Cousins hit tight end Kyle Pitts for a touchdown. 

The Steelers should not put themselves in positions where non-reviewable calls like these can decide the game.  As close as the Steelers win their games, the officials are bound to make or break a contest, one way or another. 

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Second-year referee Alan Eck assigned to Week 1 Saints-Panthers game

Second-year referee Alan Eck has been assigned to Week 1’s Saints-Panthers game. New Orleans went 1-1 with him on the field last season:

The New Orleans Saints will see referee Alan Eck for a third time on Sunday when they kick off their 2024 regular season with the Carolina Panthers; Football Zebras reports that the second-year referee and his crew have been assigned to Week 1’s game at the Caesars Superdome. Eck entered the league’s ranks as a side judge in 2016 before working as an umpire from 2017 to 2022. He was promoted to referee in 2023.

Eck refereed two games for the Saints last season: a road loss to the Houston Texans and a home win over the Carolina Panthers. The black and gold were fouled seven times for 83 yards in that first matchup (with two other fouls called and declined) but drew just three penalties for 30 yards in the follow-up. And the Panthers, this week’s opponent, were fouled four times for a loss of 27 yards in last year’s game at the Caesars Superdome.

The Saints’ costliest errors both came in the Texans game, with Paulson Adebo drawing a 29-yard pass interference foul on third down and Max Garcia getting flagged for a false start on fourth down. Garcia wasn’t re-signed this offseason, and it’s worth noting Adebo had just two more DPI penalties after that one last season.

How did Eck’s crew stack up around the league? They finished with the fourth-fewest total penalties per game (10.4), ranking seventh in average penalty yards per game (87.7). If you include dismissed fouls they had the fewest total flags thrown all year (179 in 15 games). They emphasized false starts (26 for 128 yards) and offensive holding fouls (24 for 227 yards), as well as unnecessary roughness (14 for 194 yards). For the most part they let guys get away with a lot of contact in coverage, with just a dozen DPI fouls, third-fewest. Hopefully Eck and his crew call another clean game on Sunday.

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WATCH: Western Michigan DB goes viral by leapfrogging referee … after Wisconsin scored

WATCH: Western Michigan DB goes viral by leapfrogging referee … after Wisconsin scored

We need a final piece of game clean-up after Wisconsin’s 28-14 season-opening victory over Western Michigan.

Western Michigan defensive back Nyquann Washington has gone viral, or at least a moment involving him has. It came as Wisconsin was completing a two-point conversion to WR Trech Kekahuna in the back of the end zone to extend its lead to 21-14.

After Kekahuna caught the pass, Washington played leap frog with the referee on the baseline.

Related: Big Ten Power Rankings after Week 1: Our first look at the expanded conference

The move looks more and more puzzling the slower you play the video. Washington is a full 7-8 feet behind the back judge as Kekahuna catches the pass. He then jogs forward and jumps over the referee, who had his eyes trained on whether the Wisconsin receiver completed the process of the catch.

https://twitter.com/notTomWambsgans/status/1829727579504349524

There isn’t much else to share about this moment other than it has gotten millions of views on X since the game concluded. Of all the viral moments that can happen during a game, at least this one happened while Wisconsin was scoring points.

Contact/Follow @TheBadgersWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Wisconsin Badgers news, notes and opinion. 

Bill Vinovich refereed his first Saints game since the NOLA No-Call

Bill Vinovich refereed his first New Orleans Saints game since the NOLA No-Call in their first preseason game:

We all remember it. The NOLA No-Call. The play that defined essentially what was the later part of Drew Brees’ career, and robbed the New Orleans Saints of a greater chance at seeing another Super Bowl. Bill Vinovich became the face of this catastrophe, and since that day in Jan. 2019, he had not refereed a Saints game.

This changed Saturday as Vinovich refereed the Saints’ preseason matchup against the Arizona Cardinals, bringing the pain back all over again. It’s probably not an accident this reunion was in Glendale, not New Orleans.

Vinovich has been a referee of some major games since then however no doubt about it, including Super Bowl LVIII, the 2022-2023 NFC Divisional Round matchup of the San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys, 2021-2022 AFC Conference Championship, and 2020-2021 AFC Conference Championship. He has refereed 85 games in the NFL since then, being held away from the Saints for five seasons. That streak ended Saturday, as he oversaw a Saints game once again.

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In honor of MLB umpire Angel Hernandez’s retirement, what’s the worst call in Wisconsin history?

What’s the worst call in Wisconsin history?

Major League Baseball umpire Angel Hernandez announced his retirement on Sunday night.

The news came as a surprise, though it was much-anticipated by baseball fans. Hernandez had gained a reputation as one of the sport’s worst umpires and became one of the most disliked figures by nearly every fanbase.

Related: Which Big Ten football team has the toughest 2024 schedule?

Hernandez’s retirement had many on X re-posting the worst calls of his career. There is no Wisconsin angle to that discussion, so we’re turning to an age-old question: what are the worst officiating calls in Wisconsin sports history?

There are two obvious ones that will lead everybody’s list: Duke forward Justice Winslow touching the basketball in the 2015 national championship game, and Wisconsin wide receiver Danny Davis being called for a phantom offensive pass interference to decide the 2020 Rose Bowl vs. Oregon.

Both are hard to argue with.

Winslow’s clear touching of the basketball was missed by officials and sealed Duke’s win over Wisconsin in the sport’s biggest game. A reversed call would not have guaranteed a Badgers victory, but it would’ve gave them a chance.

The OPI call on Davis, meanwhile, ruined Wisconsin’s game-winning drive at the end of the Rose Bowl. It isn’t the national championship, but its the biggest game Wisconsin football has played in over the last 20 years.

I’m convinced that final drive results in game-winning points without that penalty.

There are likely countless others to consider, but none were worst calls on a bigger stage than these two mentioned.

 

Contact/Follow @TheBadgersWire on X (formerly Twitter), and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Wisconsin Badgers news, notes, and opinion.

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Oh so now Jared Goff has a problem with bad officiating

Oh, so now Jared Goff has a problem with bad officiating. The ex-Rams quarterback now knows how Saints fans felt when his Lions lost after a bad call:

The big discussion of the NFL world today is the officiating of last night’s football game between the Detroit Lions and the Dallas Cowboys. A crucial mistake at the end of the game helped cost the Lions the win and caused quarterback Jared Goff to change his tune on bad officiating.

“It sucks. It’s unfortunate man. I don’t know if I’ve had this feeling before, where you feel like you won but you didn’t,” said the Lions quarterback after the game, per The Athletic’s Colton Pouncy.

So what was the problem? Multiple Lions offensive linemen approached referee Brad Allen during the game to disguise which of them was the eligible receiver — something that Lions coach Dan Campbell alerted Allen to before kickoff, as is standard procedure. The play was intended to fool the Cowboys defense, but it confused Allen instead, and Detroit was set back by a penalty when the wrong lineman was flagged as an ineligible receiver downfield.

It’s unfortunate, but as New Orleans Saints fans know all too well, the “human element” of the game leads to this kind of heartbreak. And it certainly made an impression on Goff, whose words took a turn from his reflecting on the 2018 NFC championship game.

While appearing on the Pardon My Take podcast, Goff shrugged off Saints fans’ concerns of a missed call in the infamous 2018 conference title game when he was a member of the Los Angeles Rams. On the missed pass interference against his former teammate Nickell Robey-Coleman, Goff scoffed: “No, it wasn’t. Was it called pass interference? I’ve had a million pass interferences that weren’t called. Who says he makes the field goal, too? I know he’s automatic from (that distance), Lutz was, but I don’t know.”

Goff has also gone on the record and said that the Saints “had a chance” to win the game despite that no-call, but his Lions had a chance, too. After losing a two-point conversion to this officiating gaffe they tried again from a further distance, but this time they couldn’t get the job done. Now Goff knows how the over half lives when the referees aren’t doing their jobs.

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NFL assigns one of it’s flag-happiest referee crews to pivotal Saints-Bucs game

The NFL assigned one of its flag-happiest referees to Week 17’s pivotal Saints-Bucs game. Land Clark’s crew averages the second-most penalties per game:

The NFL assigned one of its flag-happiest referees to Week 17’s pivotal game between the New Orleans Saints and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Land Clark’s crew averages the second-most penalty markers per game (13) with 106 fouls going against visitors and just 89 drawn by home teams. That’s a tough break for the Saints as they travel to Raymond James Stadium for what could be an elimination game in their fleeting playoff hopes.

Clark’s crew has been on hand for three Saints games since he was promoted to referee a few years ago; New Orleans is 1-2 in those matchups, most recently losing to the Jacksonville Jaguars earlier this season. The Saints were only fouled three times for 34 yards that evening while the Jaguars drew five penalties for a loss of 42 yards, but it didn’t make much difference in that 31-24 loss.

Like most officials, Clark’s crew is vigilant for offensive holding fouls (2.47 per game) and false starts (2.33), but they have also called teams for a lot of unnecessary roughness penalties (1.13). Both New Orleans (5.9 penalties per game) and Tampa Bay (6.1) have drawn their share of infractions this season, so each squad needs to be on its toes. The Saints will be eliminated from the NFC South title race with a loss, so their margin for error is razor-thin. Hopefully head coach Dennis Allen and his staff are preparing the team appropriately.

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Veteran referee Carl Cheffers assigned to Week 15 Saints-Giants game

Veteran referee Carl Cheffers has been assigned to Week 15’s Saints-Giants game. New Orleans has more wins with him on the field than any other referee:

Veteran referee Carl Cheffers has been assigned to Week 15’s game between the New Orleans Saints and New York Giants, which should be good news for Saints fans. The black and gold have more wins with Cheffers on the field than any other referee, having gone 14-4 since 2008.

That’s not to say Cheffers is playing favorites; the infractions he and his crew look for may just happen to be things the Saints do a good job avoiding. Or, more likely, most of his games with New Orleans fell during the winningest era in franchise history with Drew Brees and Sean Payton calling the shots.

At any rate: this year, Cheffers’ crew is averaging the seventh-fewest penalty flags per game (11.5) with a near-even split between home teams and visitors. They’ve fouled teams more often for false starts (28 of them) and offensive holding (24) than anything else, but the handsy Saints secondary must watch out — Cheffers’ crew has thrown 11 penalty flags for defensive pass interference in as many games.

New York averages just 5.4 penalties for 44.6 yards per game each week, which ranks in the bottom-10 in the league in both areas. New Orleans is averaging 6.1 fouls (which is 18th) and 55.5 yards per game (9th-most, troublingly), largely due to those defensive pass interference infractions. No team averages more yards lost per game to DPI penalties than the Saints (16.8). They’ll need to be careful in coverage and keep it clean.

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Twitter reacts to Chiefs’ brutal loss to Bills in Week 14

Users on Twitter had some feelings about the #Chiefs’ brutal loss to the #Bills in Week 14.

The Kansas City Chiefs lost to the Buffalo Bills in heartbreaking fashion on Sunday after a late touchdown was nullified by a rarely-called offensive offside penalty on wide receiver Kadarius Toney.

While the controversial call by the referees was a huge part of Chiefs Kingdom’s angst after the game, Kansas City’s performance against Buffalo was frustrating to watch in its entirety. Without Isiah Pacheco in the backfield, the Chiefs offense looked listless, and an early interception thrown by Patrick Mahomes gave the Bills momentum as early as the first quarter.

Fans posted about Kansas City’s disconcerting showing on social media after the game and made their feelings about the loss clear. Some used humor to cope with the Chiefs’ defeat, while others were a bit more direct with their anger about Kansas City’s latest collapse.

Check out some of Twitter’s best reactions to the brutal Week 14 game against Buffalo below: