NFL Week 15

[mhendo]

@flex727

Officials controversy of the week: the Pittsburgh score at the end of the game. The explanation by the ref implied that the NFL fails to understand their own rules. Do you suppose he was trying to say that the receiver had two feet down in the endzone AND that the ball had broken the plane? Regardless, that was a travesty of an overturned call (and I was completely indifferent as to the outcome of the game).

Tell me about it.

I’m a Ravens fan, so let me preface my remarks about the call with a few disclaimers:

1. The Ravens deserved to lose the game. They beat themselves by allowing a sack to take them out of field goal range, then letting the Steelers march 90+ yards down the field. I blame the defensive play calling; i’ll never understand why Baltimore insists on playing a loose, prevent-type defense in situations like this, rather than using the sort of aggressive, blitzing defense that had kept Pittsburgh out of the end-zone all day.

2. I initially thought the pass was a touchdown. When the officials made the call that it was no touchdown, i was happy, but rather surprised. But then i saw the replay, and it seemed to me that they probably made the right call.

3.If the officials HAD called a touchdown on the field, i wouldn’t have been surprised, and i also wouldn’t have been too upset if that decision had been upheld on review. It was so close that i think it would have been reasonable to let the call stand.

But, given that the call on the field was “No touchdown,” i cannot see any way that the officials in the booth could reasonably overturn it. The standard for overturning a call is that there needs to be incontrovertible evidence that the call on the field was incorrect. I thought that the slow-motion replay demonstrated that the officials made the right call, and there is NO WAY you will ever convince me that there was sufficient evidence to overturn the call on review.