The Las Vegas Raiders have a complaint worthy of complaining about from Saturday’s AFC Wild Card Game against the Cincinnati Bengals.
It came as an official clearly blew his whistle with Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow rolling to his right during the second quarter. The official seemingly blew his whistle due to a belief that Burrow went out of bounds before throwing a touchdown pass to Tyler Boyd.
The official’s whistle, whether erroneous or not, should have stopped the play and instead led to a replay of down. That is what is in the NFL rule book. Burrow’s touchdown pass, however, stood and the Bengals, in turn, took a 20-6 lead with two minutes left in the half. The play came on third-and-four from the Las Vegas 10-yard line.
“When an official sounds his whistle erroneously while the ball is still in play, the ball becomes dead immediately,” NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero tweeted during the game, citing the NFL rule book and specifically Rule 7, Section 2.
The NFL wouldn’t comment on the controversial touchdown, according to Pelissero. Instead, the league deferred to NBC’s rules expert Terry McAulay, who said on the NBC broadcast how the call could not be fixed in replay.
“They can’t have a touchdown on that play, by rule,” McAulay said, per Pelissero.
NBC in-game broadcasters Mike Tirico and Drew Brees both spoke against the call, as did NBC studio commentators, including former head coach Tony Dungy, during halftime. All agreed that the officials should not have let that play stand. Brees even said he believed the Raiders defenders stopped playing for a split second in coverage after hearing the whistle.
It could serve as an inexcusable officiating blunder depending on how Saturday’s game ends.
