Todd Bowles has a very good shot at fixing awful refereeing that helped Bucs lose but it won't be for awhile
The NFL involves some of the strongest and quickest athletes on the planet moving at incredible speeds. As such, it's sometimes tough for officials to get 100% of the calls right. However, one play that was particularly evident resulted in a controversy that went against the Buccaneers during their 36-30 overtime loss to the Atlanta […]
The NFL involves some of the strongest and quickest athletes on the planet moving at incredible speeds. As such, it's sometimes tough for officials to get 100% of the calls right.
However, one play that was particularly evident resulted in a controversy that went against the Buccaneers during their 36-30 overtime loss to the Atlanta Falcons.
With the Buccaneers leading 30-27 and with the ball with under 2 minutes to play, Bucky Irving took a handoff and was tackled. His facemask was grabbed and his head was turned partway around as the tackle was being made. It was pretty obvious in live time that there was a facemask.
Well, except for the individuals in stripes tasked with enforcing the rules. No flag was thrown.
As a result, a holding penalty on the play pushed the Bucs out of field goal range. Had the flag been properly thrown, the penalties would have offset, and the Bucs would have been within the range of Chase McLaughlin – who was 3 for 3 on field goals for the game with two from 53 yards – to extend the lead to 6 while forcing Atlanta to burn all of their timeouts.
Instead, the Bucs ended up punting, and Atlanta drove down to tie the game on the final play of regulation before winning the coin toss and the game in overtime.
The NFL has been loath to put the decisions of their officials regarding penalties called or not called into the hands of replay. It's available in certain limited circumstances at present, particularly this year with expanded (but still limited) review of roughing the passer and intentional grounding penalties.
The key word here, as Tom Pelissero notes, is "objective". That's where previous dabbles into penalty reviews, such as for pass interference in 2019 (thanks to the horrendous pass interference no-call in 2018-19 NFC Championship game between the Rams and Saints), have failed. The judgment of the officials did not want to be disturbed in grayer areas. With roughing reviews, it's pretty easy to determine if the head or neck area was contacted.
Similarly, it's just as easy a determination as to whether a face mask being pulled. There's absolutely nothing gray about whether or not the foul occurred, and there was nothing gray about whether it occurred with Irving on Thursday. That's just plain ol' missed. Nothing to interpret. It's cut and dry.
Will the league add it as a reviewable penalty? Well, Todd Bowles is on the competition committee at present, who oversees possible rule changes. It goes without saying he has the motivation to propose such a change after Thursday night's result.
The encouraging thing is the league has been willing to implement objective-based penalty reviews. This one certainly falls into that category, so if the league decides their new limited penalty reviews are successful, perhaps this could be one that's considered and perhaps added next season.
It obviously won't help the Bucs this season. But when you allow 509 passing yards, which the Bucs did to Atlanta QB Kirk Cousins, you had more than plenty of chances to help yourself along the way.
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Mike Evans is easily one of the best players in the history of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers franchise and he may even be the best, period. And while he's respected around the NFL, it's fair to argue he doesn't get the total respect he deserves. Far too often is the 11th-year player left off of […]
