Week 17 Game Changing Plays: Ref-Ball Impacts NFC Playoffs
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Lions HC Dan Campbell
Ideally, this late in the season, we’re talking about fantastic catches, MVP-making performances, and sensational comebacks. What we don’t want to be talking about is a referee mistake which materially affected the playoff race. And yet, here we are.
The single most important play in Week 17 came in the Detroit-Dallas game, but it wasn’t made by a Lion or Cowboy. Instead, we’re still talking about referee Brad Allen.
Let’s set the scene, After Brandon Aubrey’s field goal with 1:41 left, the Cowboys held a 20-13 lead. But in nine plays, Jared Goff let the Lions down the field, hitting Amon-Ra St. Brown in the end zone for a touchdown with 23 seconds left. Rather than kick the extra point and go into overtime, however, Dan Campbell opted to go for two. Let’s just let the entire spectacle play out, courtesy of the Lions’ Radio Network.
Right, there’s a lot to unpack there. The end result is no conversion, Cowboys win, but that was five minutes of a comedy of errors.
Let’s start with the fact that Brad Allen’s crew was having a pretty poor night before this mess. Late in the fourth quarter, the refs flagged Cowboys tight end Peyton Hendershot for tripping Lions defensive end Aidan Hutchinson, when in fact it was Hutchinson who tripped Tony Pollard. That ended the Cowboys drive, forcing them to kick a field goal and setting up the Lions for the whole game-tying-touchdown nonsense.
Secondly, it certainly looks like Detroit did attempt to have Taylor Decker report as eligible.
Allen insisted after the game that, no, #70 Dan Skipper was reporting as eligible, not Decker, and you can in fact see Skipper and Penei Sewell joining Decker at the ref just before the play. The Lions insist that, no, it was Decker, and that makes sense — it would be very strange to have one player declare themselves as eligible and then line up in an ineligible position on the line! The most logical understanding of the situation is that Allen mistakenly thought Skipper was the one who talked to him, and made the announcements and called the penalty accordingly. And, indeed, you can hear him announcing to the defense that #70 was eligible.
Now, we can’t let the Lions entirely off the hook here. Sending three guys to the ref when one is reporting ineligible is asking for confusion to happen. The Allen appears to point at Skipper as he was brushing his chest — and one way you can declare yourself eligible is to rub the numbers on your jersey, mimicking the signal the referees make when announcing an eligible receiver.
The most charitable explanation then, from all sides, is this:
- Sewell went to Allen to report as eligible.
- It is loud, and Allen doesn’t hear Sewell properly — he hears that someone is trying to report as eligible, but misses the context that Sewell is trying to declare himself as a receiver.
- Allen, who is watching Skipper enter the field, sees him brushing his jersey as Sewell is talking. Skipper has lined up as an eligible receiver on other plays in this game. In the loud noise of the stadium, he believes that Sewell is trying to alert him to Skipper reporting as eligible.
- Allen then announces over the intercom that Skipper is eligible.
That doesn’t quite line up with either side’s story, but it makes a fair amount of logical sense from all the video evidence. And once the referee announced that Skipper was the eligible receiver, it was up to Detroit to correct him before running the play. And maybe you can blame Detroit for trying to get too tricky, using a fake eligible tackle to disguise a real one, and maybe you can blame the Lions for continuing to go for two after the penalty rather than just eating their losses and kicking the extra point.
None of that excuses the mistake Allen made. This is a crucial moment in a huge game, and being able to identify players is kind of an important job for a referee! The Lions ran their play the way they told the refs they would before the game, and it worked, and it got called back because of referee error. That’s unacceptable — and it appears the league agrees, as Allen and his crew have reportedly been downgraded and will not receive playoff assignments.
The Lions got penalized because of poor game operation by the referees, and lost because of it That’s a game-changing play in my book. Flip the results, and the Lions are #2 in the NFC with a chance to steal #1 in the last week if the 49ers slipped up against the Rams. The Cowboys fall down to #5, and would be on the brink of elimination in the NFC East. Instead, Detroit will almost certainly be the three seed, putting them on the road if they have to face the Cowboys again, as they’re almost certainly going to be the two seed. A shambles, and the most impactful play of the week.
But other, football-type things happened! We should talk about some of them, too.
Giants Come Up Short
Had the Giants upset the Rams, the bottom of the NFC playoff race would have been thrown into utter chaos. It’s safe to say Tyrod Taylor and the G-Men put a real scare into the Rams, losing just 26-25 and having multiple chances in the fourth-quarter to tie or win the game. First, there was the two-point conversion after Gunner Olszewski’s 94-yard punt return touchdown — what should have been a little pitch and catch to take a one-point lead.
No matter. The Giants forced a three and out, and moved into field goal range. Send out Mason Crosby for the 54-yard game winner!
Game over, Rams win — and clinch a playoff berth. I suppose this ends up being good for the Giants, who don’t harm their draft position, but this game was theirs for the taking and they couldn’t quite grasp it. Unlike…
Cardinals Shock Eagles
You are the Philadelphia Eagles. You are the defending NFC champions. You are fighting for the NFC East title and the top seed in the conference. You are facing an Arizona Cardinals team which has been eliminated for weeks. And, while you’ve let Arizona move the ball against you more than ideal, you had a 21-6 halftime lead. You have to win this football game. You can’t let Kyler Murray and Michael Wilson do this to you on fourth down.
OK. Fine. You retake the lead on a Josh Elliott field goal — would have been nice to score a touchdown, but all your defense has to do now is get one stop. Just make a few tackles, stop Greg Dortch, you’ll be fine…
…well, maybe you can make a goal line stand and keep things tied? Stuff James Conner once or twice, and you’re right back in this thi…
The Eagles, who were in the driver’s seat in the NFC East because the Cowboys embarrassingly lost to the Cardinals, embarrassingly lost to the Cardinals and put the Cowboys in the driver’s seat in the NFC East. Arizona remembers their days in the NFC East and holds grudges, apparently.
The loss clinched the #1 seed for the 49ers, allowing them to take next week off and rest some of their banged up players — nearly three whole weeks of rest for Christian McCalfinjury seems like a problem for the rest of the conference. It also means Dallas now clinches the division just by beating Washington next week, which would lock the Eagles into a matchup against the NFC South champs on the road on Wild Card weekend. Philadelphia is sort of falling apart down the stretch here.
Lamar Jackson, MVP
OK, this time, we mean it. After winning the battle of the Titans last week against San Francisco, Jackson took the Ravens to face the other top team in the AFC in Miami. And he shredded them — 321 yards and five touchdown passes on way to a 56-19 win.
Oh, and don’t think this was all Lamar, either. The defense stepped up, hemming in the usually uber-productive Dolphins track team.
These last two games have vaulted the Ravens up the all-time leaderboards. They are now the third-best team in DVOA history through 16 games, up there with some very elite company.
This doesn’t mean they’re guaranteed to win the Super Bowl or anything — just look at 2007 and 2010 New England on that list, not to mention the 2019 edition of the Ravens. And lurking there in the shadows are this year’s 49ers, also in the top 10 and aching for a second chance after a closely fought game snowballed out of control in the second half on Christmas. Nothing’s a given here. But, at the moment, the Ravens should be your Super Bowl favorites, and Jackson should be your favorite for MVP.
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