Tag: Terry McAulay

Officials, review botch call on fumbled punt in 49ers’ win over Seahawks

A call on a punt return was botched because the NFL command center did not have Amazon’s enhanced replay

The punt was slightly confusing because Chris Conley was blocked into the Seattle return man, Dee Williams.

What seemed obvious to the naked eye and anyone watching the San Francisco 49ers’ 36-24 win over the Seahawks on Thursday was that the punt had been touched by Seattle’s return man and was recovered by the 49ers.

The on-field officials picked up the flag and said Conley had been blocked into the returner, Williams.

That led to another flag, the red challenge one thrown by Kyle Shanahan.

For sure, the review booth would make the correct call and give the football to the 49ers.

It didn’t happen as the ref said the call stood.

Later on during the game, Terry McAulay on the Amazon broadcast said he spoke to Walt Anderson in the command center. Anderson told McAulay the command center only had the live feed to review and not the enhanced version of the play that showed the football touching Williams before a clear recovery by the 49ers.

Adding insult to misery, the 49ers were also charged for a timeout because the play stood upon review.

Terry McAulay thinks Patrick Mahomes shouldn’t have replaced his broken helmet without a timeout

The refs were way too kind to Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs.

Everyone held their breath when they saw Patrick Mahomes’ helmet shatter in the frigid Kansas City weather on Saturday night. It’s just not something you see every day and was clearly a product of the absurd cold on the field.

And former NFL referee Terry McAulay thinks the officials were a bit too generous to the Chiefs as Mahomes sorted his helmet mess out.

Given that Mahomes had a critical equipment issue, McAulay questioned why Kansas City didn’t have to take a timeout. Plus, why didn’t Mahomes have to leave the game? This is usually the case when a player has trouble with their equipment, but nothing of the sort happened to the Chiefs. Instead, the game continued on seamlessly.

This might be another case of classic officiating inconsistency:

In the end, in a mostly uncompetitive game from the Miami Dolphins’ perspective, this sequence probably won’t (didn’t?) have much bearing on the final outcome. Still, you’d probably like to see the rules applied consistently — especially when they involve the NFL’s best player.

Brad Allen’s officiating crew was a one-sided farce in Eagles-Dolphins

Referee Brad Allen’s crew was far from objective in Sunday night’s Eagles-Dolphins game, as the penalties went heavily in Philly’s favor.

With 2:39 left in the first half of Sunday night’s game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Miami Dolphins, Miami offensive tackle Austin Jackson and Eagles defensive lineman Jalen Carter got into a bit of a scuffle. Jackson got a whack to the face by Carter, and when Jackson countered, Carter put up a flop that would make Cristiano Ronaldo proud.

Carter got himself an offsetting unnecessary roughness call from Brad Allen’s hyperactive crew, so it did work in his favor. Not that we ever want to encourage this.

This was one of many curious calls Allen’s crew made, and things were absolutely in favor of the home Eagles. Which makes sense, given Allen’s history.

In the end, the Eagles beat the Dolphins, 31-17, and while that wasn’t all on the officiating, like we said… it was curious. Philly had no penalties in the game, and Miami had 10 for 70 yards.

Allen’s crew missed this obvious face mask on cornerback James Bradberry…

…and this roughing the passer call on Dolphins defensive tackle Christian Wilkins was… erm… iffy at best.

Former NFL official and current NBC rules analyst Terry McAulay had a lot of cleaning up to do.

Former official Terry McAulay says officials messed up clock at end of Ravens vs. Steelers

The Baltimore Ravens had a wild finish to their game against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 8, and the officials had a part to play.

The Baltimore Ravens and NFL officials have not gotten along over the past few weeks. In Baltimore’s last two games, the Ravens have committed 21 penalties for 242 yards, and those are just the accepted penalties. Some of the flags that have gone against Baltimore have been completely understandable, but there have certainly been some phantom calls that set the Ravens back.

Against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 8, Baltimore was once again under a sea of yellow hankies, drawing nine accepted penalties for 110 yards. One of the biggest plays where the Ravens got the short end of the stick wasn’t where a penalty was called, but instead, what could best be described as a clock error on the part of head official Brad Allen and his crew.

After a big completion to wide receiver Willie Snead to get the ball right outside of the Steelers’ 20-yard line with 18 seconds left, the Ravens were forced to rush to the line and spike the ball. However, there was an injured Steelers player (Cam Heyward) back by where the previous play happened. Instead of the officials stopping the clock when the player was recognized to be injured, they let the clock run all the way down to eight seconds, blowing things dead right when Baltimore was going to snap the ball. Ultimately, the error was never recognized or corrected and it cost the Ravens 10 valuable seconds during a potential game-winning drive in which they were moving the ball effectively.

There have been many varying opinions on how the situation should have been handled, but former official and current rules analyst for NBC Terry McAulay believes that there was a major gaffe committed by the officials. McAulay alleges the officials mismanaged the clock.

If the Ravens had ended up snapping the ball before Heyward was able to make it off of the field or get back to the line of scrimmage, the Steelers would have been called for an offsides penalty and that would have advanced the ball an extra five yards. Instead of getting time put back on the clock or getting the ball closer to the end zone, Baltimore got neither.

While this sequence certainly didn’t make things any easier for the Ravens, they shot themselves in the foot time and time again with costly penalties and turnovers to put them in position to need a game-winning drive. Hopefully, Baltimore can shore things up in the coming weeks to avoid being in situations where they put the game in the officials’ hands.