Football is a contact sport, except when the quarterback is contacted. That was the reason the NFL’s Walt Anderson said Sunday morning that officials got both controversial calls correct in the Chiefs’ 23-14 win over the Texans.
Before Saturday, NFL postseason teams were 49-0 when committing zero turnovers and outgaining opponents by at least 100 yards – Houston produced 336 yards of offense and held Kansas City to 212. They’re 49-1 now, and the Texans clearly blamed officiating following the contest.
The key judgment calls, both addressed in a postgame pool report by referee Clay Martin, were executed correctly simply because there was contact to the quarterback on each play, Anderson said Sunday.
On third-and-8 in an early tie game, Will Anderson appeared to force a Patrick Mahomes incompletion. Instead, Martin called roughing the passer and awarded Houston a first down. Seven plays later, Harrison Butker kicked a go-ahead field goal.
Late in the third quarter, with the Chiefs protecting a 13-12 lead, Henry To’oTo’o collided with teammate Folorunso Fatukasi and appeared on replays to have missed Mahomes. Instead, officials ruled that To’oTo’o contacted a sliding Mahomes on a late hit and awarded the Chiefs 15 yards and another first down. Kansas City capitalized and nine plays later, Mahomes fired an 11-yard dart to Travis Kelce that gave the Chiefs a 20-12 advantage with 11:52 remaining in the game.
Anderson, the league’s rules analyst who spent 24 years as an on-field official and also headed the officiating department for the NFL, went into detail on both calls from Saturday. He also hinted that the Competition Committee likely will provide changes to the rules this offseason, in an interview for NFL Network’s Gameday Morning, with Colleen Wolfe and former Lions and 49ers head coach Steve Mariucci.
Wolfe: “So, Walt, aright, listen: We saw yesterday in the Texans and Chiefs game a couple of interesting penalties. There was unnecessary roughness and roughing the passer. Can you take us through first roughing the passer?”
Anderson: “Yes, you bet, Colleen. On the roughing the passer, whenever the defender comes in — and there’s a couple of points and when we end up looking at the video, I think the audience will end up seeing this… But when the defenders come in and when they end up coming in face-to-face, if there’s contact to the head of the quarterback, that’s probably going to be called by the officials. And that’s what you can see here. Now, it has to be forcible. And one of the things we added this year is if there’s no contact at all to the helmet, replay can assist. But on this play, there was contact. And so, replay could not help the officials with picking that up. Now, you can end up having to debate about whether you felt it was forcible or not. And that’s going to be one of those conversations for the Competition Committee to consider next year. But when he comes in, right there (narrating video of the hit), face-to-face, officials are going to call that. That’s the rule for this year. And the other thing that a lot of your audience might not realize is in all of the rule book, when in question, officials are not supposed to call a foul. But there’s one place in the rule book where it states by rule that when in doubt, officials are to call roughing the passer. And it’s in the roughing the passer rule.”
Mariucci: “All right. Quarterbacks get protected, Colleen.”
Anderson: “They’re going to protect the quarterbacks.”
Mariucci: “Later on in the third quarter now, Patrick Mahomes, he starts running around like he does, right? And a couple of Texans players are going to hit him. It’s a slide. It seems that the Texans players collide with each other and hardly touched Patrick Mahomes. This was called unnecessary roughness. You got to explain this to us.”
Anderson: “You bet, Coach. And I think you said the right word there, ‘it seems like.’ Because whether it seems like it or not, officials have to call based on what they see. Now, when a player goes to the ground, he doesn’t even have to be touched. He’s down. And what happens here is, when you can see, and yes, the two players end up colliding, but right here, this is the shot. When the hair, when No. 39 comes in and his hairline of his helmet strikes the helmet of the runner (Mahomes) who was already on the ground, that’s a foul. And even if replay assist could help in that, when there’s contact like that, that’s not going to be changed by replay assist, even if the committee decides to add that for next year.”
Mariucci: “It just seems like the severity of that little graze on his helmet was just…”
Wolfe: “Like it’s a game of inches or something.”
Mariucci: “They’re going to call that, huh?
Anderson: “Well, it is a game of inches, Colleen. And you know, this is one of those areas that is always going to be debated in terms of what’s forcible, what’s not. You want to end up having guidelines. And I’m encouraged that the committee every year adds some things for us to help with replay assist. But the game is not ever going to be perfect. And one thing we don’t want to do is we don’t want to let perfect be the enemy of good. We always want to work and continue to try to, can we make the game better? Can we use replay assist to help pick up things that are clearly and obviously not a foul? But in those areas that are gray and may be debatable, we have to leave those on the field.”
Mariucci: “You know, we’ve been doing this all year and it’s been great. Seems to me the general theme, though, is that in the offseason, you guys got to figure out a way to increase replay assist. Right? More situations.
Anderson: “Yes. Totally agree with that, Coach.”
Mariucci: “And I know it ends the game and all that.”
Anderson: “That’s going to be done.”
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