Football Zebras.com

Updated 11/29 for new feature, below

If you see a call that is a turkey, let us know in the comments section of this post. Referee assignments are after the jump.

Update: Starting this week, we will update the open forum with any calls we read about that aren’t worthy of (or if we don’t have time for) a full, standalone post. If we miss one, send us a link in the comments. Some of these may expand to full posts later in the week, as well.

• Steelers at Bills. Steelers linebacker James Harrison believes that he shouldn’t have been flagged for roughing the passer (for helmet-to-helmet contact) in the third quarter (via Scott Brown, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review).
• Jaguars at Giants. Jaguars coach Jack Del Rio questioned the offensive pass interference call against Kassim Osgood in the fourth quarter (via Vito Stellino, The Florida Times-Union). Also in that game, there was no penalty called on Jaguars defensive back Tyron Brackenridge for contact after a fair catch on Darius Reynaud. While Giants coach Tom Coughlin didn’t question the call, the game supervisor, former veteran referee Johnny Grier, phoned the league office in Manhattan about the non-call according to Mike Garafolo of The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.
• Eagles at Bears. A question was raised in a discussion board about a player who does not try to advance an onside kick. When a player “gives himself up” he does not have to be touched down by an opponent to have the play declared dead. This happens more often on kicks (because it prevents the clock from running), but the same applies when a quarterback takes a knee to run out the clock.

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Week 1: Lions at Bears

It was a bitter pill to swallow for any team, let alone for the hapless Lions, who have cobbled together just two wins in as many seasons.

With 31 seconds to go, the Lions seemingly took the lead on a 25-yard touchdown pass to Calvin Johnson (video). As the celebration begins, officials signal an incomplete catch. Referee Gene Steratore explained, “The ruling on the field is that the runner did not complete the catch through the process of the catch.” He further elaborated to a pool reporter following the game:

Q: What is the rule used on the near Detroit touchdown at the end of the game?
Steratore: The ruling is that in order for the catch to be completed he has got to maintain possession of the ball throughout the entire process of the catch.

Q: He was on his behind before he rolled over. If he stayed on his behind would it have been a touchdown?
Steratore: No. We don’t play with the two feet or one knee or anything of that scenario. We’re talking now about the process of the catch. He’s catching the football, as he goes to the ground, he must maintain possession of the ball throughout the entire process. So as he continues to fall if he fell with two feet and his elbow hit the ground and came out it would be incomplete.

Q: It looked like he had the ball up in one hand while on his rear end, but there was continuation?
Steratore: Well, the process was not finished until he finished that roll and the entire process of that catch.

Q: How long did it take to determine that?
Steratore: We had the normal time [one minute] as far as the video was concerned. We would not run it any longer.

The “process of the catch” is a topic we covered frequently last season. It is also the most misunderstood.

The advent of the catch-process rule was to challenge professional receivers to demonstrate full control of a ball, even while doing so acrobatically or while colliding with the ground. It also eliminated “cheap” fumble opportunities, where a pass was marginally complete, and a receiver coughs up a ball that he really did not have full control over in the first place.

The complexity of the process of the catch was apparent in last year’s opening weekend, when Raiders receiver Louis Murphy went down to the turf and was ruled incomplete. It seemed that the NFL definition needed an offseason refinement, as there were similar issues in the next three weeks. However, the NFL maintained that a catch ruling as it was stated in the rulebook, Rule 8, Section 1, Article 3, Item 1:

If a player goes to the ground in the act of catching a pass (with or without contact by an opponent), he must maintain control of the ball after he touches the ground, whether in the field of play or the end zone.

In the Lions game, Johnson caught the ball in the air, and then contacted the ground with both feet, his left hand, and his knees.  When Johnson was in, essentially, a seated position, he was not down, because he needed his second hand to stop his momentum of falling further. It would have been safer had he tucked the ball in after making the two-handed grab, rather than holding in one hand.

(As a side note, the Fox television announcers Thom Brennaman and Brian Billick—at least in the clip I saw—showed a good understanding of the process of the catch, which is not often heard from the game callers.)

Calls to revise this rule, however, will revert us to the days where two toe taps and a brief fingertip grip on the ball qualified as a completed catch. That is hardly a professional standard.

Week 13: Ravens at Packers

The Ravens and Packers gave the spotlight to the officials on Monday Night Football, as both teams were assessed a combined 310 yards in penalties, tied for second all-time. The Ravens, while being penalized 175, managed to outdo the referees by 10 yards with 185 yards total offense. Several pass interference fouls lead to the high yardage totals.

The MNF team was also quick to point out that the Buccaneers–Seahawks game from 1976 was the sixth week of both teams’ inaugural season.

• 374 — Cleveland Browns (209) vs. Chicago Bears (165), Nov. 25, 1951
• 310 — Baltimore Ravens (175) vs. Green Bay Packers (135), Dec. 7, 2009
• 310 — Tampa Bay Buccaneers (190) vs. Seattle Seahawks (120), Oct. 17, 1976
• 309 — Green Bay Packers (184) vs. Boston Yanks (125), Oct. 21, 1945

Couple of stories of the NFL handing out fines for conduct:

• Backtracking to Week 9, Bears quarterback Jay Cutler was fined $20,000 for arguing a call with referee Ed Hochuli. Cutler was flagged for a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. Much like Chad Ochocinco’s $1 facetious bribe the same day, this is the standard first-offense fine for “verbal or other non-physical offense against [an] official.”
• Also in the Bears–Cardinals game, the Bears defensive lineman Tommie Harris, who was ejected on the third play of the game for what Hochuli described as “slugging” another player, was fined $7,500 (video at 0:19).  Because the Bears played a Thursday night game, the fines were not announced until after their Week 10 game.
• Finally, in a case of swift justice, Titans owner Bud Adams was fined $250,000 for obscene gestures launched from his luxury box towards the Bills sideline—or $125,000 for each finger. The incident happened at the end of Sunday’s game, with the fine being announced Monday morning. There was little dispute in the matter, as his double-barrelled salute was uploaded to YouTube.

This season’s first “Official Review” on the NFL Network signature program NFL Total Access offers us a double dip from the league’s vice president of officiating, Mike Pereira. In addition to the cablecast segment (video), we were treated to a web-exclusive extended segment (video). The topics:

• The reversed touchdown catch by Louis Murphy of the Raiders that we covered here (and here). Pereira mentions the catch “process” that we described, and even used the same clip from preseason that appeared on 2009 Media Tape #1 that we referred to in that first post.
• In the Steelers–Titans game, Cortland Finnegan signaled a fair catch immediately upon the punt, which was too early.
• Al Harris of the Packers was flagged incorrectly for illegal contact on the Bears’ receiver Devon Hester, which NFL Network commentator Rich Eisen aptly described as “turnstyling.” This was under the jurisdiction of field judge Jim Howey.
• A touchdown catch by Braylon Edwards of the Browns after he was driven out of bounds by Cedric Griffin of the Vikings. Since the action that placed Edwards out of bounds was a penalty, all Edwards had to do was reestablish two feet in bounds, which replay showed he just barely missed. Second-year side judge Keith Washington was covering the play, and we’ll consider that he called it correctly, even though the call was reversed by the benefit of replay.

Week 1: Bears vs. Packers

The Packers clearly had a successful 2-point conversion late in the game. One replay was aired prior to the kickoff that showed it was close but, undeniably, was a complete pass.

As soon as the replay cleared the screen, whistles were heard to initiate a booth review of the play. This hearkens back to comments by Mike Pereira, head of officials, on his assessment of the Cardinals’ final play in Super Bowl XLIII:

You learn and … next time it happens, at this point of the game, this big of a play, let’s go ahead and [call for a replay review].

Pereira said that the replay guidelines would be revised to reflect this. I am calling it the “critical juncture review,” or the replay to satisfy the conspiracy theorists.

The replay official was Ken Baker and the referee was Ron Winter.