The wild card game had expedited replay reviews but no challenge. There were a total of ten accepted penalties for a total of seventy two penalty yards. The penalties did not determine the outcome for or against the Denver Broncos, and while there were some hiccups the officials also had some notable successes. The Buffalo Bills played a better overall game, and the officials kept the game moving and focused hard on keeping emotions under control for both playoff teams.

Bo Nix Runs Into the Bills Bench

One of the most terrifying plays in football is when in a highly emotional game a player gets tackled into the opposing bench. This is a red alert for officials and for several reasons. First, the player is hilariously out-manned on the sideline, making it very easy for situations to escalate. Second, if things escalate even a little bit, the bench can get involved without breaking the rules about leaving the sideline for a scuffle, while the opposing team cannot. Third, many offensive linemen are coached that especially if it’s the quarterback out of bounds, they need to defend their guy, and want to come to his help. There is basically no situation on a bench that is going to be improved by adding 1500 lbs of hostility. So for these and other reasons, officials are drilled to react fast to plays out of bounds to the bench.The wing secures the spot but pivots (and frequently steps onto the field of play) to have a clear and unobstructed view of as much of the sideline as possible. The referee and the closest deep wing crash hard, to put neutral bodies on the sidelines and hopefully calm any tensions.

In this game, this very situation happened ten minutes into the game when Nix scrambled into the Bills bench. It took referee Bill Vinovich three seconds to get there from approximately 20 yards upfield, and field judge Jabir Walker took a much less impressive six seconds to arrive from approximately thirty five yards downfield. These officials had other post-play responsibilities, but covered a large distance fast. As normally happens when the officials use their deescalating mechanics correctly, nothing happened on the sideline and probably no one noticed the situation. Which is entirely the point, and it was reasonably well executed. In this case, it appeared that a Buffalo substitute wanted to help up Buffalo linebacker Matt Milano, and basically shoved Nix in his attempt to do so. This was really stupid of the substitute, and could have gotten very nasty fast, but deescalated into nothing. I would not have hated an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on the sideline for the call (depending on what was said), but did not mind the no call either.

Aiding the Runner

It is against the rules for an offensive player to pull a runner forward. They are allowed to push the runner from behind (controversially so), and allowed to push defenders (though not pull them – that would be holding). This foul has not been enforced in a game in over thirty years, but that does not make it less relevant. When Bills lineman Dion Dawkins clearly pulled runner James forward in the first quarter it should have been called as a foul. This would have set the Bills up with a first and 17 instead of a gain of 16. It is hard to call “exotic” penalties that rarely get called, especially in the playoffs, but it was an egregious foul and a huge no-call.

Surtain Holding Missed

Mixed crew officiating is tough on the little things. There are some definitive rules for which officials should be observing which players at which times, but there is more art than science to it on some plays. The Bills and announcers highlighted one play in the third quarter where Surtain clearly committed holding, but it went uncalled. Replay shows that Surtain was right in front of back judge Jimmy Russell, and that Russell was looking elsewhere. This was not a bad play by Russell, who had another assignment on the play. At the snap the covering official on tight end Dalton Kincaid was Frank Steratore. Its also not obvious (though it is probable) that it was Steratore’s fault. Someone should have caught the interference, but with a mixed crew there is the chance one official switched faster to zone coverage than the other. Officials always start passing plays in “man” on the offense, and switch to “zone” coverage no later than when the ball is away, though knowing when the ball is away without watching the passer is an art in itself. It is also possible that Steratore had a bad angle on the hold, though it looked fairly obvious from most angles. The end result helped the Broncos, but it was a bad missed call.

Referee Bill Vinovich Talks with Allen

After a timeout, cameras showed a replay of Referee Bill Vinovich talking on Bills sideline with Josh Allen. I have heard a number of complaints about this in the context that referees prefer “star” quarterbacks and give them special treatment. This is a really complicated topic to understand, so I want to explain in depth why people are wrong to think that.

First, most people assume that football is basically the same everywhere, and with a few exceptions they are correct. One of the exceptions has to do with media and time outs. Almost no high school games are broadcast by media, and those that are typically do not have media timeouts. College games range from almost never having media timeouts, to minute plus timeouts on minor games, to major network games typically having ~3:30 media timeouts every change of possession. The NFL has smaller media timeouts than big college games, typically blocking out ~2:30 per timeout. So, in the professional game, unlike in high school or most college games, officials have relatively large blocks of time off. This is extremely welcome, and helps officials do our jobs better. We can coordinate observations on formations, play types, borderline calls, warnings we have given, etc. Most importantly, we can answer rules questions. Officials are always allowed to discuss the game with the teams (though obviously we take enormous efforts to avoid giving an unfair advantage via this). Most of these conversations are player or coach initiated, but officials will frequently seek out players, especially if they are doing something potentially dangerous to themselves or others, or if the player seems to have a shortening fuse. However, most players and coaches are fairly overwhelmed by the pace of the game, and are not really in the space mentally to discuss things with officials. We try our best to have these conversations in ways that will not impact the game. For example – if there is a minor offensive line problem, we will try to tell a defensive coach we want a chat with the offensive line coach after the next change of possession, so that we are not distracting him while the offense is out on the field or getting ready (this also changes a lot by the level of football as to how many coaches or players are on the team). By this logic though, players who are seasoned veterans like Josh Allen tend to have chats with the officials more frequently than younger players, because the veterans are playing a slower game and have more head space to interact with officials. It is a known flaw that this can give veterans, especially veteran quarterbacks a small advantage by this. However, the advantage is in their processing and their headspace, not in our treatment of the veteran, or in other words, it’s a skill issue. In short, there is nothing wrong or strange with Vinovich discussing something with Allen. Its what we want to be able to do with all players all the time.

I will say I found it deeply weird that Vinovich patted Allen on the back. I had an internal rule (not in the rules or mechanics) about never deliberately touching a player or coach under almost any circumstances, and it served me extremely well. This is not a universal thing, but I am amazed that it has not caught on more. Vinovich clearly has different habits than I do on this front, but I still found it bizarre.

Payton/Nix Delay of Game Watch

Denver burned one time out on getting a play in, and had two other plays where the snap barely beat the play clock. Sean Payton and Bo Nix have work to do in the off-season on this.

Official Evaluation

I charted three bad calls in the game. Two were discussed above, and one was an illegal formation, which while I continue to note them, the league does not want enforced anymore so the officials are not being graded down on. There were six questionable calls in the game, including the Kincaid catch late that probably was not one, as well as the final non-interception by Nix that might have been one. The questionable calls were pretty low leverage except for the Kincaid catch. The spots in the game were playoff caliber. I noted three spots throughout the game that I disagreed with, but none were off by even a yard, and none were in high leverage situations. The officials were very quick to whistle that forward progress had stopped. This is a choice that can de escalate fierce games, but also cuts down on fun running plays. I generally favor slower whistles, but it was consistent throughout and certainly within the realm of valid philosophies. Back Judge Jimmy Russell has relatively under-performed as an official through his career, but I was impressed by his work in this game.

I am not a Bill Vinovich fan. But the NFL consistently likes his style, and in this game you can see why. Vinovich moves things along fairly expeditiously, and places a heavy priority on calming tensions and making the game less prone to escalation. The short wings, who regularly work with Vinovich were interesting enough this game that I am eager to see their work next year.

Mailbag

What is the most unrealistic representation about officials in the media?

I am not sure if this question was about entertainment or punditry, so I will answer for both. For entertainment (in movies or tv shows about football), its coaches arguing calls about the goal line. The reality is coaches are not allowed to move closer to the goal line than 25 yards away, and so they always have a terrible view of goal line plays and no mechanism to argue unless they call time out specifically to do so. For pundits, they underestimate officials – how much they work on the rulebook, how much they practice, and how experienced NFL officials are (most have officiated 15+ years before their rookie year in the NFL).

I will have a few more regular columns talking about how different Broncos officials did in the playoffs before we get into the off-season schedule. Thanks for reading this year and for all the questions throughout the year. And lets always remember, its the officials fault!