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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

Week 5: Jets at Dolphins

In the first quarter of the Jets–Dolphins Monday Night Football game, referee Alberto Riverón paid tribute to Hispanic Heritage Month with the first penalty call of the game.

We asked the public relations staff at Land Shark Stadium for the text of the call, but they were unable to get that for us. We reconstructed the call, by our best guess, based on the rule book at NFLatino.com: Update, 10/13/09: Jared Cooper of the NFL communication department came through for us and provided us with the call:

Salida falsa, ofensiva. Numero ochenta y uno. Falta de cinco yardas, repite el segundo down.

[False start, offense. Number 81. Five-yard penalty, repeat second down.]

Ed Hochuli also gave a call in Spanish during the October 2005 game played in Mexico City.

Without getting into tremendous detail, the Week 2 edition of “Official Review” (two-part video that aired on NFL Net and NFL.com) covered the same topics we covered this week. The assessments we gave on the calls were entirely backed up by the league’s vice president of officiating, Mike Pereira. The calls under Official Review:

• The call of interference with a fair catch on the Titans
• The interception caught off of a foot by the Giants, overturned on replay, but the return nullified.
• The catch possession through to the ground was discussed as it pertained to the Texans and Panthers touchdowns being upheld. Also, the Dolphins had an interception overturned on Monday Night Football on similar grounds (video highlight at 1:05).

The segment also covered the noncontroversial call on the last play of the Bengals–Packers game. With the clock about to expire, referee Ed Hochuli ruled that the game was over prior to the snap. He then corrected the call that there was one second left on the clock, but since the Packers were not set in their stance at the snap, it was a false-start penalty. Of course, a false start with the clock running under two minutes also includes a 10-second runoff, which then consumed the one second. It was only a matter of clean bookkeeping, as the game ended without a play being run under both circumstances.

Pereira did express regret that the catch/ground issue has been so misconstrued and misunderstood only two weeks into the season. Whether this results in a Competition Committee review (as he alluded to with the Titans interference play) remains to be seen.

Week 1: Chargers at Raiders

Near halftime of the second part of the Monday Night Football doubleheader, the Raiders were driving for a go-ahead touchdown, which they scored on the initial call. The replay booth initiated a replay.

During the review, the announcers (not the weekly crew, but morning-show and game-show credentials among the participants) insisted that they “would be shocked” if the call was overturned. The ball was on the ground at the completion of the catch, which color commentator Steve Young said was irrelevant, as the receiver had two feet down in the end zone.

Referee Carl Cheffers explained that the reception is a process: catch, control, two feet, maintaing control to the ground.

The words of calling a reception a “process” should have been familiar to Young. The league’s vice president of officiating, Mike Pereira, uses that terminology in a periodic tutorial video disseminated to media outlets. These videos particularly focus on new or frequently misunderstood rules for announcers and writers. Zebra Blog reviewed this video prior to the game, plainly titled 2009 Media Tape #1, but clearly explaining with numerous plays from preseason the catch-plus-ground equation. Young should have spent the 15 minutes we did reviewing the tape that Pereira took the trouble to disseminate to the media.

Commentator Mike Golic said he personally went to the replay booth for an explanation of the play. The description given pretty much matched the description given on 2009 Media Tape #1. To his credit, Young did say he should have known the rule. But, then he said that it could’ve gone either way.

No, Steve, please do your homework.

Week 1: Bills at Patriots

In the middle of the fourth quarter (gamebook), Patriots linebacker Adalius Thomas sacked Bills quarterback Trent Edwards for a ten-yard loss. In the process of tackling the quarterback, Thomas pulled Edwards to the ground, drawing a 15-yard roughing-the-passer penalty.

The Monday Night Football crew all thought this was a particularly questionable call on replay. However, each replay was shown without sound. The quarterback was called in the grasp, and the play was whistled dead. In the continuing action after the whistle, Thomas drove Edwards to the turf. The roughness call was not because of the severity of the takedown, but that Thomas continued after the quarterback clearly after the whistle had blown.

The call, in this case, was correct. Referee Scott Green (in his AFL Legacy orange Creamsicle uniform) was covering on the play.