Miami still had no pass rush or defensive skills to stop the last drive

 

I wish they wouldn't even bring this out, who cares the games over it means nothing to come out and publicly say it.

 

First, it's huge that they brought it out...because those refs are worried about job security right now. They screwed up and it should be made public. To me though, in a game where we stomped the Bucs in the 2nd half and clearly won the game, it's justification.

 

it doesn't change anything all it does it make the refs more cautious next game and there will be flags everywhere, poor teams they get this week. When have you ever heard of a ref getting "fired" for 1 bad call?

 

You usually don't BUT how often are bad calls made public? Every ref in the league now knows the NFL feels like officials screwed Miami and you'd better believe it will be in the back of their minds going into Sunday. It's not about the ref being fired for one bad call...it's being put on notice that they possibly changed the outcome of a game and that's not acceptable.

Remember, we had the phantom holding on a long run, the same on a deep pass, the same on the TD pass from Moore, the illegal forearm hit on Cutler, etc. There were a lot of questionable calls and it's always a positive when the league recognizes a problem.

 

I agree I mean I really don't care if they tell me they messed up everyone watching the game knew they messed up even the in game official from NY so I could careless if they tell the public or not, all it does is anger us fans that they stole a game from us 3 days after the game is over hahah

 

I agree with you....but think back to that Pitt game where Salvatore handed Pitt the win on the fumble that he first said wasn't a fumble, then changed the ruling only to say that they couldn't tell who recovered the ball (when a Dolphin came out of the pile holding the ball....and held onto it for five freaking minutes waving it in the ref's faces). The league never admitted they screwed up there and we were one game short of making the playoffs. So yeah, I'll always take the admission of an error over silence any day of the week.

Heck, look at the Reshad Jones "defenseless receiver" penalty that gave the Raiders that last drive......he had his freaking helmet ripped off as he was tackling an in-bounds receiver. That's two games we lost to ref error in three weeks....we should actually be 6-4 right now....and the "fire everyone" chants a few are making here are basically over things outside of team control. So I definitely listen when the league admits that they failed.

 

ya i mean its easy sitting at home seeing a million replays to say one thing, I think and always have thought refs skew things towards certain teams, the pats and steelers seem to have the refs every game no matter who's playing except for each other. a lot of things would be different had certain calls went one way, im sure the falcons think a call they could have gotten would give them a W as well its part of the game. its always over get it right on the field and move on I could careless if you say this or that after the fact IMO it doesn't make me feel better lol

 

This is the most damning quote from that link:

If that's true, then I understand why the refs had to stay with the bad call. However.. wtf is the point of replay if you can't review every aspect of the call?!?

 

Yes, absolutely, isn't a safety a scoring play? How is it that isn't a review?

 

But the head official in NY said they should have overturned it and called a safety as well. So either the NFL and their head ref misinterpreted the rules, or the rules are being misinterpreted in that article. I'd go with the latter.

 

I don't see how they cant challenge the forward progress, isn't that the same thing as the spot of the ball? I would take that with a grain of salt and it should have been reversed.

 

The Dolphins were pretty pitiful in that game, but the Refs made a number of bad calls that went against us that did effect the outcome of the game. But either way it does not change the fact that this team was sloppy and flawed the whole game.

 

Nor is it going to change the final score, it is still 30-20 today.

 

Actually, researching this I think the article got it right. Here's the official rules for 2017:
https://operations.nfl.com/media/2725/2017-playing-rules.pdf

Look at page 65 under Article 4. Non-Reviewable Plays:

Of course that conflicts with the idea of determining whether forward progress gave you a 1st down or determines spot of the ball. So I'm guessing on page 66 where it explicitly lists reviewable plays and it says "line of scrimmage" is reviewable, then forward progress can be reviewed, as we've seen many times. But that doesn't apply here.

Wikipedia (less reliable but still generally good) says something similar:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_replay_in_American_and_Canadian_football

So if my reading of this is correct, the refs got the review call (not the original one) technically correct based on an absolutely stupid rule.

 

But we're not looking for forward progress on out of bounds of lost possession (although it's technically a possession changer, the scoring aspect would come first). For instance, all TD's are reviewed to make sure the ball passed inside the pylon and broke the plane....that's in direct contradiction of what that rule says. So I believe that they can check ball placement on a safety just like they can on a TD..the goal line itself would open up a different set of rules.

So I think the article quoted the wrong rules there since it directly contradicts what we already know about scoring plays plus what the head ref and the league said about the matter.

Here's my other problem though- all scoring plays are supposed to be reviewed. And while the ref said that it wasn't a safety, it should have automatically been reviewed by the booth because it was a potential score. How badly did we need that timeout down the stretch? That blunder of a completely different rule on the exact same play cost us more than 2 points and possession, it also cost us a critical timeout.

If nothing else, a booth review on the safety would have given us a timeout to let us challenge the spot on William's 4th and 1 run....which would have led to a 1st down and additional points in our favor (since we were already in field goal range). So that one play with two botched calls cost us a minimum of 5 points.

 

Regarding the 1st sentence.. you're misreading that quote. That quote says you can't review forward progress while inbounds, which in this case will include the endzone.

Regarding the 2nd paragraph.. they only automatically review plays that were actually called on the field a score. Potential scores are not automatically reviewed. Same with possession change. That has to be called a possession change on the field.. can't be "possibility of a possession change".

 

Okay, that makes more sense then....but not complete sense. I've seen coaches challenge measurements many times when they thought their team picked up the first down in bounds. Is that not the same thing? I know it's technically not, one measures going forward while the other measures going forwards and backwards, but it's really splitting hairs or a clearly blown play call.

If your interpretation is correct, then it was not a safety despite what the NFL and the head ref said (because he blew the "forward progress the first time and couldn't change it the 2nd time). That's where I have the problem with all this.

Furthermore, if you can't challenge forward progress then there was no challenge, which means we lost a timeout for a play that never should have been reviewed in the first place. So we're still at two massively blown calls on one play either way.

 

Yeah I thought I covered that in post #16. They explicitly say under "reviewable calls" that "line of scrimmage" is reviewable. And that wiki page said for 1st downs forward progress is reviewable. Neither applies here.

The original call was wrong, but the call they made after review was technically correct, even if the original call they upheld was wrong. So it should have originally been called a safety, but once it was under review you can't challenge forward progress so they had to uphold the original ruling.

Forward progress wasn't the only thing that was reviewable, so they reviewed everything they were allowed to review which sadly doesn't include forward progress.

 

We're in agreement on the other two points so I left them out, but that third one is ridiculous. If you can't make a safety without changing the forward progress (which is what the play hinged on...the incorrect initial call), then there's nothing in the review that can overturn the ruling. So therefore (as a point of Parliamentary Procedure, LOL) they should not have taken our timeout or wasted time with the charade.

 

It's because we know that in hindsight, after lots of time to look at the replay, this was a forward progress problem. At the time the question was simply where was the ball/QB when he got tackled, and that's obviously reviewable.

 

Okay, I'll give you that...although I still don't like it. =)

But you'd think after the review, the ref would say that it was unreviewable due to the initial call on forward progress. That would have given us our timeout back at least.

 

Players get fined by the league all the time for mistakes they make on the field. Maybe they should hit the refs paycheck for FUPs like this.
Especially now that they are full time professionals.

 

Steratore I think. Yes?

 

Yup, that Pittsburg-loving Steratore and his hometown Steelers! He's owed a nut-punt if any of us ever cross his path in real life. =)

 

Players don't get fined for **** ups, they get fined for actions that were deemed intentional or dangerous. If this was deemed intentional, then it's criminal.

 

And they get fined for hundreds of other infractions. Everything from PED violations to wearing the wrong socks.

There should absolutely be a financial consequence for the referees who are documented to suck at their jobs. Performance reviews from teams should be a factor. Highest graded and performing officials get post season work and extra $$$. Lowest graded have to work preseason for minimum wage.

They wanted full time year round professional officials. They got it. Time to perform. Officiating thru the league has been awful this year.

And replay should be able to make it right, for every second of every play in the game.

 

Preseason work isn't a bad idea but the rest I can't condone. If the quality isn't good enough, the only financial consequence should be the loss of your job.

 

Yes I remember awarding him the nut punt award that week.