NFL Week 8 Game Thread

Cellar-Door

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Whatever happened to the effort to make obvious non-calls reviewable after the terrible non-call in the NFCCG 5-6 years ago that probably cost the Saints a trip to the Super Bowl?

The back judge was the only official in position to make the call tonight. He flat-out missed it. That happens. But particularly on a scoring play, there should be a way to make non-calls like that one reviewable without opening the door to review routine stuff like uncalled offensive holding.
They added the ability to challenge PI... the refs basically didn't overturn anything even clear penalties, and as such the NFL got rid of the review the next year.
 

Pesky Pole

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Replay Assist is supposed to be able to address penalty enforcement and roughing the passer.

Replay Assist

So there is no real excuse that this play was allowed to stand. Even if the spirit of the ”penalty enforcement” is around spot (e.g. grounding), the latter is plenty of latitude in this particular case.
 
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Justthetippett

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When the refs miss an obvious call that everyone in the stands sees, that's a problem! I don't want to slow games down, but that's just an obvious one for the guys watching back in NY to rectify. They shouldnt jump in on 50/50 calls but when it's 100/0 like this one, why would you set up a system to let it slide? The ref telling him it was his shoulder...love how certain he was but man what was he looking at?
 

Van Everyman

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They added the ability to challenge PI... the refs basically didn't overturn anything even clear penalties, and as such the NFL got rid of the review the next year.
Which tells you everything you need to know about whether you can trust the league on any of this stuff. The only way what you describe happens is that the league directs the officials not to use the rule. Why? Who knows. But clearly the league made a conscious decision not to enforce a rule change it approved and didn’t want to share it with anybody.

Which brings us to the biggest problem with these “eye in the sky” rules: there is no transparency or accountability at all. It’s just some suit employed by the league arbitrarily deciding which rules to enforce. Think back to LII when Al Riveron decided mid-Super Bowl to begin enforcing the following year’s catch rule. There should’ve been a massive uproar. But because it was the Patriots—and because it happened out of sight—it just sort of happened.

Meanwhile the league professes to care so much about the health and safety of its players but has had to be dragged kicking and screaming to use any of its officiating enhancements to protect them. Calling a helmet to helmet on site when replay shows a player clearly got targeted or a face mask where we see the player’s head gets yanked around seconds after it happened is the easiest thing in the world to do. But once again they don’t want to do it. For reasons.

The NFL doesn’t actually care about officiating the game better just like they don’t care about protecting their players from injury. All they care about is purporting to care.
 

CoffeeNerdness

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It feels in regards to penalties, the eye in the sky is mainly- if not exclusively- used to reverse a penalty that was called on the field, rather than to call a penalty that was missed.
 

johnmd20

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If the Rams had fans, they could have all thrown bottles onto the field and then the call would have been changed.
 

CFB_Rules

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Ok with the result but how can you miss that face mask?
R and U are behind the QB and can’t see where the grab occurs. It could be face mask, it could be the collar. You can’t guess based on the head twist or you get this:

View: https://youtu.be/kmBgptnhP9E?si=zxnJi7-ecYW4xmSC


LOS officials each have a receiver downfield and are looking down there. Once they “feel” that the QB is about to be sacked they can look back and help on the tackle / get a spot.

In the old days or in college the umpire would be in the defensive backfield and would be staring right down the barrel at this. But the NFL moved the umpire because some guys couldn’t keep up. Once they claimed it was for safety they can’t move him back without the Union asking for truckloads of cash, so there are known holes in coverage.
 

Cellar-Door

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R and U are behind the QB and can’t see where the grab occurs. It could be face mask, it could be the collar. You can’t guess based on the head twist or you get this:

View: https://youtu.be/kmBgptnhP9E?si=zxnJi7-ecYW4xmSC


LOS officials each have a receiver downfield and are looking down there. Once they “feel” that the QB is about to be sacked they can look back and help on the tackle / get a spot.

In the old days or in college the umpire would be in the defensive backfield and would be staring right down the barrel at this. But the NFL moved the umpire because some guys couldn’t keep up. Once they claimed it was for safety they can’t move him back without the Union asking for truckloads of cash, so there are known holes in coverage.
Yeah, while I sometimes might get this argument... Blake is right there, nobody is in his vision line and the QB gets his head ripped directly to face him and he doesn't throw the flag.
If he can't see that call he needs to retire.

View: https://twitter.com/SharpFootball/status/1849648978805096870
 

Curt S Loew

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Yeah, while I sometimes might get this argument... Blake is right there, nobody is in his vision line and the QB gets his head ripped directly to face him and he doesn't throw the flag.
If he can't see that call he needs to retire.

View: https://twitter.com/SharpFootball/status/1849648978805096870
To be fair, these things happen real fast and his view is from the rear of the player. You can see him look to see if there may have been a foul. I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he thought he caught the top of the shoulder pad under the facemask. That is my only explanation, because if he actually SAW him grab the facemask and didn't call it, then there something definitely wrong going on.

This is why you need to be able to change it.
 

Cellar-Door

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To be fair, these things happen real fast and his view is from the rear of the player. You can see him look to see if there may have been a foul. I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he thought he caught the top of the shoulder pad under the facemask. That is my only explanation, because if he actually SAW him grab the facemask and didn't call it, then there something definitely wrong going on.

This is why you need to be able to change it.
The problem is he was asked why they didn't call it, and he said no ref (the other one appeared to have a view too) had an angle to be able to see... which is clearly wrong.

If I had to guess, he assumed it was the shoulder, then when it turned he had stopped looking and looked at the ball, because at the end you see him step around to see if there was a fumble.
As to it happening fast... yeah that's everything in the NFL, if you can't keep up you gotta retire.
It's a terrible missed call, and while that's very bad (as is not allowing review on facemaks when you allow it on grounding, spots and a bunch of other calls) but that he wasn't willing to admit he just missed it is even worse.
 

Curt S Loew

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The problem is he was asked why they didn't call it, and he said no ref (the other one appeared to have a view too) had an angle to be able to see... which is clearly wrong.

If I had to guess, he assumed it was the shoulder, then when it turned he had stopped looking and looked at the ball, because at the end you see him step around to see if there was a fumble.
As to it happening fast... yeah that's everything in the NFL, if you can't keep up you gotta retire.
It's a terrible missed call, and while that's very bad (as is not allowing review on facemaks when you allow it on grounding, spots and a bunch of other calls) but that he wasn't willing to admit he just missed it is even worse.
I was only commenting on your post regarding his view, not on what he said after.

Yes, I also realize that's everything in the NFL. I'm not disputing that. Not everything is a disagreement.
 

CFB_Rules

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Zedia

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I agree this is the exact angle Blake had. Feel free to screenshot the exact moment you can see the hand grasping the facemask .
Post #59 is pretty clear to me. And even if you get granular and say you can't see his fingers on the mask (the still is pretty blurry/compressed), he's either grabbing the mask or the shoulder. And he's definitely not grabbing the shoulder. Watching it in real time, it's even more clear - hand is in front of QB's face, head violently jerks around, hand clearly not on shoulder pad.
 

Mystic Merlin

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It should be non controversial to subject all personal fouls to replay review, since roughing the passer calls are already subject to review, but the league mishandled the one year PI was subject to review so I’m not optimistic they’ll do anything about it. And re the short lived PI review, whenever you add heightened standards of review for certain calls but not others and informally instruct NY to really try not to overturn certain calls/noncalls it muddles decisionmaking.

The league is simply way too allergic to slippery slope/time management arguments or the distinction between ‘judgment calls’ (whatever that is) and ‘non-judgment calls’. They already draw arbitrary lines about what is or isn’t reviewable, so just refine it further.
 

Cellar-Door

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I agree this is the exact angle Blake had. Feel free to screenshot the exact moment you can see the hand grasping the facemask .
Others have screenshot, but to me... he should know it's a possibility for the moment of contact and be looking, then as the QB is spun to him there is a window to see it as evidenced in screenshots. There is nothing else there that should have his attention over the QB being tackled in the head/neck area.
 

Marciano490

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Don’t blame the helmeted soldier, he probably wasn’t looking directly at the prisoner.
 

Mugsy's Jock

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There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for why Blake missed the call: perhaps he we was looking at something else? Which could be justified -- what if in that second he thought he saw a hold developing and was focused on the OT or something?

Or is it his responsibility only to look at the QB there?
 

Curt S Loew

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There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for why Blake missed the call: perhaps he we was looking at something else? Which could be justified -- what if in that second he thought he saw a hold developing and was focused on the OT or something?

Or is it his responsibility only to look at the QB there?
I think it's evident he was looking right at the play. I think he just thought it was the shoulder/collar.
 

Cellar-Door

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There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for why Blake missed the call: perhaps he we was looking at something else? Which could be justified -- what if in that second he thought he saw a hold developing and was focused on the OT or something?

Or is it his responsibility only to look at the QB there?
https://operations.nfl.com/officiating/the-officials/officials-responsibilities-positions/

NFL says he's supposed to turn his attention solely to the QB when the defense is threatening to touch him.

I think based on the tape the most likely answer is he just decided it was the shoulder, or he decided he didn't want to make a call and be wrong.
 

Mugsy's Jock

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https://operations.nfl.com/officiating/the-officials/officials-responsibilities-positions/

NFL says he's supposed to turn his attention solely to the QB when the defense is threatening to touch him.

I think based on the tape the most likely answer is he just decided it was the shoulder, or he decided he didn't want to make a call and be wrong.
Thanks. If he's supposed to be looking at the QB, harder to make an excuse for his missing it. Off with his head!
 

scott bankheadcase

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I do understand not wanting to open a hornets nest with subjective penalty reviews, but facemasks are less subjective than most things that are subject to review right now.

Nothing could be done in this game, but that should be one where the eye in the sky can call it in the future. There's no arguing it's a clear an obvious penalty, just whether it gets seen.

Almost every other penalty is much more subjective (maybe too many men excluded).
 

CFB_Rules

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Others have screenshot, but to me... he should know it's a possibility for the moment of contact and be looking, then as the QB is spun to him there is a window to see it as evidenced in screenshots. There is nothing else there that should have his attention over the QB being tackled in the head/neck area.
Yeah he’s definitely responsible for the QB alone. But the screenshot doesn’t do it for me. Mostly because you are looking at the back of the helmet and can’t see the Facemask. He could be grabbing the chin strap for all we know.

I’m specifically looking at the screenshot from behind, I obviously know it was a missed Facemask call.
 

CFB_Rules

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I think if you want to open this replay, let it be Referee initiated instead of a judgment call by the RO. This play is a clear example. They know something happened but couldn’t see it. Allow them to queue up replay “hey replay was there a grab of the Facemask?” And then the onfield crew can take it from there
 

Mystic Merlin

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I think if you want to open this replay, let it be Referee initiated instead of a judgment call by the RO. This play is a clear example. They know something happened but couldn’t see it. Allow them to queue up replay “hey replay was there a grab of the Facemask?” And then the onfield crew can take it from there
Fine by me. Would this essentially leverage the expedited/shadow review process? That seems to work just fine on clear cut issues like clock or spotting mistakes.
 

CFB_Rules

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The smooth way to do it would be to just have the Referee flag a play like this even if not sure, replay confirms or not while the officials converse to get penalty options, and just pick up the flag if it’s not there. Seems like that would be minimal stoppage but you could only do it once or twice
 

Morgan's Magic Snowplow

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Yeah he’s definitely responsible for the QB alone. But the screenshot doesn’t do it for me. Mostly because you are looking at the back of the helmet and can’t see the Facemask. He could be grabbing the chin strap for all we know.

I’m specifically looking at the screenshot from behind, I obviously know it was a missed Facemask call.
If the ref applies any reason or logic at all, though, he realizes that the only way the defender spins Bradford's head around like its an outtake from the Exorcist is by grabbing the facemask. That doesn't happen with the shoulder pad and the next time somebody does that by grabbing the chin strap will be the first.

In the moment it might be hard to see for sure exactly what's being grabbed but its still an obvious call if you consider the bigger picture. Referees do that all the time. They might not get a perfect view of a defensive holding taking place, but they can see the impact on the WR's body movement and make the call.
 

CFB_Rules

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If the ref applies any reason or logic at all, though, he realizes that the only way the defender spins Bradford's head around like its an outtake from the Exorcist is by grabbing the facemask. That doesn't happen with the shoulder pad and the next time somebody does that by grabbing the chin strap will be the first.

In the moment it might be hard to see for sure exactly what's being grabbed but its still an obvious call if you consider the bigger picture. Referees do that all the time. They might not get a perfect view of a defensive holding taking place, but they can see the impact on the WR's body movement and make the call.
I hear you. And iirc, the R in that Rodgers clip I linked earlier actually got a bit of a pass from the media because they all thought it looked like a facemask at first too.
 

Dollar

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Mason Rudolph with a beautiful Brady/Urlacher juke to get into the end zone.
 

NDame616

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Tua's first play back:
Scrambled and runs up the middle for about a 15 yard rush.

Ends the play by lowering his head to try to charge through 2 defenders....
 

JCizzle

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Tampa's creamsicle uniforms with Errol Flynn helmet decal is one of my favorites of all time.
Agreed. I know why they had to move away from them, but all-time classics.

Conversely, teams like the Broncos look way better in the throwback uniforms they wore a couple of weeks ago and had no real reason to move away from those.
 

mauf

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Not a TD in Tampa. Amazing play by Winfield.

Edit: Guess the replay official didn’t think it was as clear as I did.
 

johnmd20

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Richardson, 2/15, INT on his own 10 with 25 seconds left in the half. Abysmal.

They really need to put Flacco in.
 

JCizzle

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Richardson, 2/15, INT on his own 10 with 25 seconds left in the half. Abysmal.

They really need to put Flacco in.
Wow. That's about as bad of a halftime line I can remember in normal weather conditions.
 

Dollar

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Wow. That's about as bad of a halftime line I can remember in normal weather conditions.
It's Ryan Leaf territory. And that was a much different offensive environment back in '98. This is UGLY.