NFL referees are making Titans special teams look worse after admitting to calling mistaken penalties
The Tennessee Titans have largely been a disaster on special teams this year. They've made fools of themselves a handful of times in just the past couple weeks. They've got real problems they're working through. But Head Coach Brian Callahan sounded off on one thorn in their flesh that they've had no control over: officiating. […]
The Tennessee Titans have largely been a disaster on special teams this year. They've made fools of themselves a handful of times in just the past couple weeks. They've got real problems they're working through. But Head Coach Brian Callahan sounded off on one thorn in their flesh that they've had no control over: officiating.
The Titans have been penalized 3 times in the past 4 games for Illegal Formation on kick returns. Each time has been a moment in which every fan watching, already at their wits-end over special teams blunders, turns to their neighbor and either shouts in a fit of rage or laughs like they've got a screw loose. An involuntary exclamation of disbelief: can these guys seriously not even line up properly? Is the coaching staff that bad? Are the players that stupid?
These are the insinuations Brian Callahan got so sick of, that he decided to finally speak his mind at the podium on Monday. What he said was the damning truth, and it will come at a serious price. Listen for yourself:
"Well the first one, I mean, just because I'm tired of hearing about it, but the first one the league came back and said they shouldn't have called it. So, I know I'm not supposed to say that, but, you know, that wasn't a penalty and shouldn't have been called."
So the Illegal Formation penalty on the Titans against the Colts in Week 6 was bogus. As it turns out, no, the Titans aren't so poor on special teams that they don't even know how to line up.
The reporter who asked the question insinuating otherwise was doing so reasonably, as it was what many observers of the team were thinking. But Brian Callahan decided in this moment to forfeit a hefty fine that will surely be levied on him for speaking out in order to shut that insinuation down.
Callahan continued, explaining all three Tennessee illegal formation penalties out of chronological order (we'll sort them in a moment):
"The second one, Justin (Hardee) left early in the game. I don't really have an explanation for why, he shouldn't have, he didn't do it in practice. Yea he just left early on the kick, so that's a penalty and they should call it and we shouldn't do it."
This was actually the most recent occurrence, on the opening play of Patriots-Titans. The third instance was forgotten in the moment, until another reporter mentioned it. Callahan revealed the truth about that one too:
"Oh, I mean yea, nothing changed, it's the same… that shouldn't have been a penalty either."
So let's take a look at each of these plays for ourselves. Here is the first (chronologically accurate now) penalty, from Week 6 against the Colts. I can't actually tell you who the call is on, because the official doesn't announce a number. And again, the NFL itself admitted there was no illegal action here. So your guess as to who this phantom call is on is as good as mine:
Here's the second phantom call, and this time we know who it's supposedly on: Mason Kinsey. He's at the top of your screen, let me know if you can spot the early movement (you can't):
And finally, the third call in which the refs actually got one right. New Titans special-teamer Justin Hardee looks like a veteran, which he is, who hasn't played with the new rule and has a ton of muscle memory under the old kickoff rule here. Pretty funny, in hindsight:
So there you go. The league messed up. The referees messed up. They didn't know what they were doing enforcing these new rules two out of the three times they've flagged the Titans for it, and it took a head coach expensively pointing it out for us to realize it.
The Titans aren't alone in getting these flags, by the way. Zach Lyons did the leg work to track down these numbers, and they show just how widespread Illegal Formation calls have been under then new rules. More than half the league has been called for it (rightly or wrongly) and the Titans aren't even the worst offender.
Make no mistake, Callahan will be punished by the league for these remarks. Are they the truth? Absolutely. But this is how the NFL rolls. They're more than happy to secretly, nearly unintelligibly, admit to coaches during the week when and why they totally screwed them during the previous week's game.
But as for the court of public opinion, the league must not be blemished! They're content to let the players and coaches look like incompetent fools when the officials make a sometimes costly mistake. Now, thanks to modern broadcast technology, those of us at home sometimes catch the officials making these mistakes. But in many instances, such as these penalties that aren't particularly harmful in the games but are extremely detrimental to the image of a team fighting to prove their competence, the officiating blunders go unnoticed unless a coach chooses to speak out and pay the price.
Its a bad system. The NFL can and should do better.