The big debate of the day.  The Giant’s Victor Cruz fell down, then intentionally let go of the ball because he thought the play was over.  However, having not been touched the Cardinals, he wasn’t actually down.  The refs decided that he “gave himself up”, making the play dead, but that’s controversial.

The rule states:

An official shall declare the ball dead and the down ended… when a runner is out of bounds, or declares himself down by falling to the ground, or kneeling, and making no effort to advance.

It doesn’t seem that Cruz fell down intentionally, and he certainly didn’t kneel, so did he give himself up?  Here’s a video of the play:

What do you think?  Did Jerome Boger and his crew make the right call?

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Did Victor Cruz “give himself up”?

This has been a HOT topic today, with Todd Geerlings’ page receiving over 150 comments so far. Geerlings crew called an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty during last night’s Pinstripe Bowl when Kansas State’s Adrian Hilburn scored a late touchdown and saluted the crowd. The penalty forced the Wildcats to try a game-tying 2-point conversion from 17 yards out, and Syracuse wound up winning 36-34.

Here is a clip of the play:

Interestingly, here is a Syracuse touchdown from earlier in the game where the player uses two hands to form a diamond shape to the crowd. Is that less “excessive”?

I didn’t see the game live, so I can’t say for sure. However, it seems like his crew blew the call. Your thoughts?

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Todd Geerlings’ excessive celebration penalty on Kansas State’s Adrian Hillburn

We’ve already had a tons of posts and emails about this, but people are steamed about the Calvin Johnson’s catch at the end of the Bears/Lions game being overruled.

It sure looked to me like a catch. Here’s a video of the play, so leave your comments below.

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Lions vs. Bears: Calvin Johnson didn’t catch it?

A few years too late, Bill Leavy has apologized for mistakes he made in the 2006 Super Bowl though he hasn’t said exactly which calls he is referring to.

There are a handful of calls that are in dispute, but none that were outlandishly bad as we’ve seen in a variety of games in recent years.  Here’s a good clip that covers most of them from Super Bowl XL:

What do you think?  Which calls is he referring to?

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Bill Leavy apologizes for mistakes in 2006 Super Bowl

I was fortunate enough to be at a place yesterday that had the Saints/Redskins game on. A quick sidenote, NFL Sunday Ticket is one of the best things ever invented in my opinion. I’m still not exactly sure what’s wrong with the Redskins, but that’s another story for another website.

In overtime, the Redskins won the toss and elected to receive.  On the Redskins third play, Jason Campbell threw a short pass to Mike Sellers. Sellers was tackled and lost the ball but was ruled down by contact. The Saints called a timeout giving Replay Official Larry Nemmers the chance to buzz down to Referee Carl Cheffers to review the play. Cheffers reviewed the play and reversed it, giving the Saints the ball and setting them up for the game winning field goal.

The play occurs at the 4:55 mark of this video, was it the correct call? Or was Sellers left arm down before the ball came loose?

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To fumble or not to fumble?

I’ve noticed several comments about this call already, so I wanted to give some details to it.

With third and 9 from the Steelers 34, Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco fumbled the ball at the 42. The ball was recovered by the Ravens at the 37 with 18 seconds left. With no timeouts remaining, the Ravens went into fire-drill mode to try and get a last second field goal attempt off. In all of this confusion, however, Ed Hochuli and his crew mistakenly spotted the ball at the 37.

NFL Rulebook 8–7–6: If a fumble by either team occurs after the two-minute warning:

(a) The ball may be advanced by any opponent.

(b) The player who fumbled is the only player of his team who is permitted to recover and advance the ball.

(c) If the recovery or catch is by a teammate of the player who fumbled, the ball is dead, and the spot of the next snap is the spot of the fumble, or the spot of the recovery if the spot of the recovery is behind the spot of the fumble.

There were alot of things that the officials had to do at this time: spot the ball, make sure there were only 11 players on the field, watch for the field goal try, make sure there wasn’t a false start, and be aware of a possible timeout called before the kick.

Regardless of this, is there any good reason for Hochuli‘s crew to err in the spotting of the ball and turn what should have been 59 yard try into a 54 yard try? Should the replay official have buzzed in to correct the call? thereby forcing an officials timeout and giving the Ravens time to set up?

I don’t believe there’s a good reason here for this to have happened and the ball should have been correctly spotted, that’s the rule. Do you think they should have stopped the action and got the spot right?

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Is 5 yards that big of a deal?

It sure looked like it at the end of the Monday Night Game this week. I can’t really explain what Jerome Boger was thinking when he high-fived Vince Young at the end of the game. Referees are supposed to be impartial, and although we see them talking to players every week, or smiling, this type of obvious gesture surely can’t be appreciated by the league.

I know it’s “guy code” to not leave a guy hanging, but under no circumstance should Boger have done this. He has to maintain his professionalism in this situation, fold his arms, and let Young go on his way.

If Chad Ochocinco is going to get fined for a $1 bribe (which he claims was a joke) then certainly Jerome Boger should have to pay a price for this gesture, shouldn’t he?

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Is Jerome Boger a Titans Fan?

In watching today’s games, I saw two calls in the Indianapolis/Baltimore game that were not called by John Parry‘s crew and impacted the game.

With 13 minutes left in the game, Flacco completed a pass, but was contacted by Mathis in the helmet, which should have added 15 yards to the end of the play. It was not called, although the pass was completed, it was not a major impact on the game.

Worse then this was the missed false start by the Ravens with under 3 minutes to go. The Ravens offensive line committed the false start, which wasn’t called, and on that play Flacco tossed an interception, virtually icing the game for the Colts.

Any other missed calls change games today?

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Week 11 Blunders

With Dallas down 10-0 early in the fourth quarter, Tony Romo was sacked and fumbled the ball which was eventually recovered Clay Mathews and gave the Packers the ball at the Dallas 3 yard line.

But was the ball recovered by Felix Jones first? On the clip below, the play is shown at the 2:45 mark.

Jeff Triplette and his crew ruled that the ball was a fumble the entire way throughout and therefore Wade Phillips was unable to challenge. After watching the replay several times today, I believe the officials had this one correct, do you?

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Romo Fumbles Away Another Win??

As it turns out, it WAS a touchdown for Troy Polamalu, but it’ll never show up that way in the history books.  Fortunately, this error didn’t change the outcome of the game.  However, it messed up a lot of gamblers and fantasy players, and could possibly affect the playoff picture under certain scenarios.

The problem is that if ANY forward pass touches the ground, the play is dead.  The officials simply got confused about which pass was which.

The little flip pass from LaDanian Tomlinson to Chris Chambers was an illegal forward pass, but was handled cleanly by Chambers.  When Chambers tried to lateral again, the ball hit the ground.  However, because that pass went backwards, the ball was still live and it was legal for Polamalu to pick it up and score.

There still should have been a penalty on the Chargers for the illegal forward pass from Tomlinson, which the Steelers could decline so they could keep the touchdown.  That’s what happened initially.  After that, referee Scott Green changed his mind (got confused, etc) and things got a little weird.

As a result of this mess, the NFL is looking at making some slight tweaks to the replay system.  With the new rules, officials will be allowed to re-review a play if they think they need to.  This new system could be in place in time for the playoffs.

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The NFL admits it goofed at the end of the Steelers-Chargers game