Cheffers crew crushes 2:00 drive

Football Zebras team coverage

Carl Cheffers and his crew absolutely crushed the final two minutes of the Week 16 game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Detroit Lions. It all came to a wild conclusion on the final play of the game.

The Lions must score a touchdown on the final play. Jared Goff finds Amon-Ra St. Brown at the one-yard line. He will not make it to the goal line and throws a backward pass to Goff. Goff runs it into the endzone for an apparent touchdown.

Chaos.

The officials didn’t blow the play dead, even though the Steelers could argue that St. Brown’s forward progress had stopped. There was no doubt that St. Brown wasn’t down and the backward pass and Goff’s advance to the end zone was legal.

But before all of that, we had flags down.

St. Brown ran his route, pushed off his defender, and came back to catch the pass. The officials properly ruled offensive pass interference on St. Brown.

By NFL rule, if only the offense fouls on the last down of the half, the half is over and no points scored will count. (It is more complicated if there are fouls by both teams.) If this was NFHS (high school) rules, the Steelers would have had to accept the penalty to nullify the touchdown, but would also be stuck with one untimed down.

After getting confirmation from centralized replay that time had expired, referee Carl Cheffers announced that the play was a touchdown, but the offensive pass interference nullified the touchdown and the game was over and the Steelers won.

Cheffers announcement was a little clunky, but the officials were on top of the final play and made outstanding calls. Our Football Zebras crew has the rest of the final two minutes. —Mark Schultz

Replay review of critical 3rd down pass upholds Lions completion

The final two minutes of the game started basic enough with an incomplete pass from Jared Goff to Shane Zylstra, bringing up a 3^rd & 13.

On the next play, Goff again targeted Zylstra, but this time completed the pass for a gain of 11 yards. However, as Zylstra was going to the ground, it appeared that he might have lost control of the ball, with the ball contacting the ground. This was very close, and as we’ve discussed in the past, it is not replay’s job to re-officiate the play, but to determine if there is clear and obvious evidence to overturn the call on the field, which on this play was a completed pass. Zylstra appeared to get his forearm under the ball, even if the ball appeared to touch the ground as he did. Replay could have gone too technical, but they correctly upheld the call and brought up a 4^th & 2 for the Lions. —Chris Seubert

DPI extends the drive for the Lions

On the very next play, Jared Goff threw a pass deep over the middle which fell incomplete. Two flags came in, one from back judge Martin Hankins and one from side judge Eugene Hall, which announcer Jim Nantz characterized as “late.” We will address that description in a bit.

Safety Kyle Dugger arrived a little too early, but we have to step back and review the elements. Each pass interference call has a “bucket,” or category, and in this case, Dugger tries to play through the receiver. He doesn’t have a legitimate path to the ball, and the contact was a significant hindrance to completing the catch.

These elements seem obvious, especially having the benefit of the second slow-motion view. On the field, an official must take what is obvious and still process the call. By mentally replaying the contact, the deep officials could identify all of those elements listed. To throw a penalty flag like it’s a live grenade before processing the call is officiating malpractice. Once that is processed, then they pull the flag and throw it — and being at least 15 yards downfield, there’s a windup before throwing. By the time the flags flutter into camera view, quite a few seconds have elapsed, but there was a lot happening in those seconds, and by no means was it “late.” —Ben Austro

A trip draws two flags and gives the Lions another 15 yards

On the play following the pass interference, Goff was rolling out of the pocket and went down quickly. Both Cheffers and umpire Derek Anderson (second-year NFL official, first at umpire) threw flags for tripping.

In this case, the tripping is fairly obvious as it occurs in green space as opposed to near the line where there are more players, typically. Officials are generally not watching the feet, so these calls tend to be elusive, especially when it doesn’t involve the ball carrier.

Even at that, both the referee (who has primary on the quarterback) and the umpire (who is generally covering the blocking, but will shift quickly when contact to the quarterback is imminent) must actually see a leg or foot stick out beyond the frame of the opponent. With Cheffers and Anderson keeping enough visible space in front of them to see everything, this was a good catch by both. — Ben Austro

OPI nullifies first potential game-winning Lions TD

The Lions eventually worked down to the 1-yard line and had a 1st and goal situation in which they could have won the game. They appeared to score the go-ahead touchdown when Goff found St. Brown wide open at the goal line in the front corner of the end zone.

But the play call, a slant/flat combination, ended up setting up an illegal pick play where the outside receiver, Isaac TeSlaa, running the quick slant, drove his shoulder into the coverage defenders, preventing them from getting outside to cover St. Brown.

TeSlaa made no effort to present himself as a target for pass, and contact continued downfield about four yards into the end zone while the pass was being thrown. Without this contact, St. Brown would not have been as wide open as he was, which is why the flag was correctly thrown.

This set up 1st and goal from the 11-yard line, and after three more plays, chaos ensued on the final 4th and goal play from the 9-yard line. —Rich Madrid