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Week 4: Chargers at Steelers

In the Sunday Night Football game, the Chargers special teams player Jacob Hester is credited with a heads-up, 41-yard fumble-return touchdown. However, it is confusing how the Steelers punt returner Steve Logan was driven back three yards in control of the ball without being ruled down by forward progress.

The video of the play shows clearly that Logan achieved the 44-yard line, with the fumble occurring at the 41.

The covering official was back judge Steve Freeman, who marked the point of recovery with his beanbag. The field judge, Boris Cheek, was covering the sideline at the 25 (you will see his hat marking that a player stepped out of bounds), so he was in no position to judge forward progress.

There was a coach’s challenge, but forward progress could not have been overturned on replay.

Week 4: Titans at Jaguars

Yikes! The catch-into-the-ground calls took a week off last week, but we are looking at the fourth controversial review of a touchdown (or non-touchdown) catch in as many weeks. The current controversial call came in the Titans–Jaguars game.

Nearing halftime, a pass to Jaguars receiver Mike Sims-Walker was ruled incomplete in the end zone, based on the rule that a receiver going to the ground must maintain control through to the ground (video). On a replay review, referee Alberto Riverón overturned the ruling by back judge Lee Dyer in interesting fashion. The reversal call:

The receiver possesses the ball. As he is going down in the end zone, he has three feet down, and, as a second act, the defender slaps the ball away. Therefore, it is a touchdown.

The description given by Riverón was absolutely horrible. Here is the replay reversal announcement, if we were giving it:

The receiver got two feet down in the end zone, then landed on the defender, completing the process of the catch. The call on the field is reversed: touchdown.

This is the second use of “a second act” in a catch/replay announcement. (Don Carey referred to the “second act” of stretching over the plane of the goal in Week 2.) This is moving us back to the old determination of a catch: two feet in bounds, and then make a “football move.” The “second act” is irrelevant and misleading verbiage. In the case of the Jaguars touchdown, once the catch was completed, it was a touchdown and a dead ball. Therefore, the “second act” doesn’t even occur during the play.

Keep in mind that a player, once the receiver lands solid to the ground, the process of the catch is finished. If there is a player underneath the receiver, we don’t apply new rules that come from the “down by contact” section of the rulebook. So, it was a bad call by Dyer on the original incomplete call and a bad call on the description given by Riverón.

Update: According to the league’s supervisor of officials, the original call by Dyer was correct, the replay reversal was wrong, as were we.

As done in previous weeks, there is a two-part “Official Review,” one for NFL Network and one for NFL.com. The topics were not nearly controversial this week for the league’s vice president of officiating, Mike Pereira:

• 49ers defensive back Shawntae Spencer signaled incomplete on a pass that he broke up in the game against the Vikings. However, since he was over the prone receiver, it was deemed a 15-yard taunting foul.
• Texans receiver Kevin Walter, running a tight end-zone route, collided with a Jaguars defender. It appeared inadvertent, but it drew an offensive-pass-interference call. Pereira gave his wavering support for the call on the field, but in the subtext, it is probably going to be scored against the covering official’s grade. In this case, the covering official was field judge Jim Howey.
• Other noncontroversial offensive-pass-interference calls from the Falcons–Patriots (which nullified a Falcons touchdown) and Steelers–Bengals.

The bulk of the conversation between Pereira and NFL Net talking head Rich Eisen focused on a call for plane-of-goal cameras in every stadium to supplement the broadcast cameras. This started when a Texans go-ahead-touchdown attempt was thwarted by a goal-line fumble. Replay was inconclusive as to when the player was down, so the field call stood. (Bonus: Pereira showed the videotape of the replay assistant’s efforts from the referee’s field monitor perspective.)

When we watched Super Bowl XLIII, there were fixed camera positions on the goal line, as was evident from the coast-to-coast interception return by James Harrison (video). Primetime games and playoff games (and, to a lesser extent, the key afternoon matchups) have more camera angles than other standard regular season games. It’s just a built-in flaw in the system, just as much as a network television director making a choice of replay angles is. Replay is not supposed to be the fix-all. (Eisen went on to suggest a camera mounted on the pylon.)

Technology is always explored for improving the mechanics, such as using laser-sighting or GPS technology for measuring first downs. The gain, though, must be a part of the equation. Do you place a camera on the pylon for a goal-line play that happens once in a few weeks? There are eight pylons on the field and do you add cameras to similarly patrol the sideline and end line? And it would not have solved this situation, because the play was not the breaking of the plane of the goal, but the knee that is a yard or so back.

Inconclusive video is a perfectly acceptable call, especially since the coach had the discretion to throw the challenge flag in this instance.