Football Zebras.com

Dec. 28, 1975
NFC Divisional Playoff: Cowboys at Vikings

Thirty-five years ago, “Hail Mary” became a football term after Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach so described the desperation pass that connected with Drew Pearson in a playoff game with the Vikings.

In the final drive, the Vikings were convinced that the touchdown should never have counted by crucial calls on two plays in the drive. In protest, a hailstorm of debris was thrown from the Metropolitan Stadium crowd, with a half-full bottle of Corby’s whiskey striking an official in the head.

A video of the original CBS television broadcast called by Gary Bender and Johnny Unitas is below.

Fourth and 16. Staubach connected with Pearson near the sideline, but landed out of bounds at the 50-yard line. Head linesman Jerry Bergman ruled that it was a completion, and that he would have landed in bounds if Vikings cornerback Nate Wright had not pushed Pearson out. The rule, which was changed in 2008, allowed the official to rule a completion in case of a “force out” prior to being able to get two feet down in bounds. Vikings coach Bud Grant disagreed with the call, but said that when Wright contacted Pearson, “the official gave Pearson the benefit of the doubt.”

The Hail Mary. After an incomplete pass, Staubach heaved the ball to Pearson who was at the 4-yard line and tangling with Wright. Pearson caught the pass and walked in for the go-ahead touchdown. Wright immediately protested the call with field judge Armen Terzian, claiming offensive pass interference should have been called, and would have had the interception if he wasn’t interfered with. Coach Grant thought it was clearly a penalty:

From our side of the field, there is now question that Nate was pushed. No question. [Pearson] had nothing to lose. If they called a penalty on him, what had he lost? They would just line up and try another long pass. It was one chance in a hundred that he would get away with it, but it was the only chance he had.

Pearson claimed he was playing the ball, but admitted that he might have gotten called for a push:

It was a little bit short so I had come back a little and that gave me a chance to get away from Nate. The ball juggled around a little and I finally caught it between my elbow and my ribs. … I thought I might have gotten pass interference. It could have gone either way.

No penalty was called, and the touchdown stood.

Terzian gets pelted. The irate crowd was already throwing things onto the field, as an NFL Films slow-motion video shows an orange hitting the field during the touchdown reception. With the Vikings in possession for the final seconds of the game, Terzian, the field judge, was struck in the head by a bottle, rendering him unconscious. Bergman, the head linesman, immediately came to his aid and was holding Terzian’s head until the Vikings medical staff arrived. Terzian had to leave the game and backup official Charley Musser officiated his position for the final two plays. Terzian required 11 stitches to close the gash in his forehead.

There are two postscripts to Terzian’s career. First, he is immortalized in a 1978 NFL Films clip which Chiefs head coach Marv Levy was wearing a microphone on the sideline. After admitting in pregame that he went to the college with Terzian, he is later seen screaming one of the most memorable quotes captured by the NFL Films microphones (which I cannot find online without being doctored up by the uploader):

Hey, Armen. Hey, you over-officious jerk.

Second, Terzian moved to a replay judge in the first generation system in the mid-1980s. During a 1988 Giants–Cowboys game, the opening kickoff was muffed by the Cowboys receiver and was ruled a safety. Terzian should have overruled the call (as was the procedure in the earlier version of replay review), but he never called for a review. The points were decisive, as the Giants won 12-10. For his error, Terzian was suspended by commissioner Pete Rozelle, but Terzian opted to retire.

Terzian died in 1989 at the age of 74.

Video credit: NFL/CBS Sports. Photo  credit: Charles Curtis/Duluth News Tribune

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.

read more »

With an unbelievable amount of candor, referee Bill Leavy admitted that he made game-changing mistakes when he officiated Super Bowl XL in February 2006—mistakes that helped propel the Steelers over the Seahawks.

It was immediately branded as one of the worst called Super Bowls in history. The Seattle Times ran a list of six questionable calls that illustrates the frustration on the Seahawks sideline, beyond the frustration with the team’s own performance (see the list below).

Leavy’s comments came during the preseason rounds by the officials to brief players in training camp of new rule changes. Leavy apologized for, in his estimation, two late-stretch calls that helped the Steelers put the game away:

It was a tough thing for me. I kicked two calls in the fourth quarter and I impacted the game, and as an official you never want to do that. It left me with a lot of sleepless nights, and I think about it constantly. I’ll go to my grave wishing that I’d been better … I know that I did my best at that time, but it wasn’t good enough … When we make mistakes, you got to step up and own them. It’s something that all officials have to deal with, but unfortunately when you have to deal with it in the Super Bowl it’s difficult.

Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren addressed a crowd in Seattle after the loss saying he “didn’t know we were going to have to play the guys in the striped shirts as well.” The NFL reviewed his comments, but did not fine him. However, the conspiracy machine was churning so hard, that NFL spokeman Greg Aiello released this statement two days after the game:

The game was properly officiated, including, as in most NFL games, some tight plays that produced disagreement about the calls made by the officials.

That, essentially, still rings true. Leavy and his crew failed on a few calls, but it is a part of the game. There were no misapplications of the rules or crew mechanics, so all the calls in question were judgment calls. Good teams are able to overcome bad calls just as much as adverse weather conditions. For instance, a questionable holding penalty can be blamed on the referee, but an interception thrown three plays later also has to balance out the conversation.

The Seattle Times “6 Key Plays”

• Offensive pass interference nullifies touchdown
• Dropped pass could have been ruled catch & fumble
• Replay review upheld Steelers touchdown
• Touchdown reception denied for contact with pylon
• Questionable holding call nullifies first-and-goal
• Illegal block called when it appears there was no contact

Week 13: 49ers at Seahawks

As NFL head coaches are wont to do on a weekly basis, 49ers coach Mike Singletary has registered a complaint with the league office regarding some questionable calls in Sunday’s game against the Seahawks. First, Singletary does acknowledge that important caveat at the end of his remark that we frequently mention here: referees don’t decide games any more than the weather does.

Here are Singletary’s comments from his press conference:

Every week we send a letter to the league about different calls that are made or not made in a game. Just to say this week, there will be several paragraphs that will be going to the league.

[Questioned about specific plays:] There were many.

[Questioned about an uncalled 4th-and-goal pass interference:] Let me say this before I go too far down this road, obviously there were bad calls made and I think in every game there are bad calls made. Yesterday, for me, there were just a few more than I had witnessed maybe since I’ve been in the league and I just want to make sure that our players, coaching staff, our fans, everybody involved with the 49ers, everybody that cares about the 49ers, I want them to understand that this is not about the referees. They didn’t fumble the ball. They didn’t throw interceptions. They didn’t make bad plays, we did. So I don’t want to put this on the referees. I certainly feel that some of those calls were questionable, but if we had done what we were supposed to do, we overcome that and we win the football game.

The pass interference non-call came early in the first quarter (video, first highlight). The Associated Press reports that another call in the communique to the league may include a late-game reception by the Seahawks that set up the tie-breaking field goal (video). Singletary is seen complaining to line judge Ron Phares for, apparently, the lack of an illegal contact or offensive pass interference penalty.

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.