Texans at Ravens Divisional observations

[FredFan7]

Unless he gets the Super Bowl, this is the retirement game for Tom Hill.


R 35 John Hussey
U 124 Carl Paganelli
DJ 44 Frank LeBlanc
LJ 101 Carl Johnson
FJ 97 Tom Hill
SJ 56 Allen Baynes
BJ 96 Matt Edwards
RO Andrew Lambert
RA Larry Hanson
ALT R Ron Torbert
ALT U Duane Heydt
ALT LJ Jeff Seeman
ALT FJ Ryan Dickson
ALT BJ Dino Paganelli

[wjl]

I hope Tom gets the Super Bowl. We are losing one excellent official in Tom Hill. I also put Mark Perlman and Jim Mello in the Super Bowl ,two other excellent officials. Just my guesses.

[FredFan7]

Dalton Schultz is brought down near the sideline, but it was legal. Schultz got up a little heated.


Line judge Carl Johnson was holding the spot, but he saw trouble brewing. He dropped his bean bag to mark the spot and then went to assist field judge Tom Hill to keeping officials apart. Also, note the alternate officials moving in to help Johnson and Hill.


After everyone got going in the right direction, referee John Hussey did a good job of preventative officiating by talking down the Ravens Patrick Queen.

[FredFan7]

In the past, an intentional grounding flag would come out from a referee fairly quickly. In the past couple of decades, this has evolved into a crew call with a flag only being thrown when officials with different keys contribute their input to the call.


First, Texans quarterback C.J .Stroud was in imminent threat of a sack. The ball landed short of the line of scrimmage outside of the hashmarks with no receiver in that zone. The complicating factor is that the ball went over the head of tight end Brevin Jordan. It is not grounding if a quarterback overthrows a receiver, and it would seem that the length of the discussion was whether that could have been considered an overthrow of Jordan.


It was not, but good work by the crew to methodically go through all the steps and be absolutely certain that they did not leave a stone unturned.

[FredFan7]

Referee John Hussey correctly adds that this false start involved everybody by the center.


While Troy Aikman says this is his favorite penalty call, former referee John Parry chimes in that this call was "not in his repertoire; [just call] false start, in and out."

[FredFan7]

At halftime the Texans had eight penalties and the Ravens had one. But most of the penalties were pre-snap fouls that called themselves.

The crew is doing a very good job.

[FredFan7]

[FredFan7]

The replay assist function was initiated on a first down run when there was clear and obvious evidence without extensive review that Ravens running back Justice Hill steps out of bounds.


Replay assist can only help if there is a single-shot clear look and can do so before the play clock reaches 20 (or the snap if earlier). In this case the play clock was frozen at 13, because it appears that replay communicated to the field at the correct time, but there were other complications. Typically, the crew can respot the ball and then reset the play clock to 25.


In this case, it changes from 1st & 10 to 2nd & 2. So, the best practice is to just halt the play clock and respot and reset the chains. Additionally, this gives time to clearly communicate to both coaches, because a 2nd & 2 play call would be much different than 1st & 10.


This is a compromise to the "sky judge" system used in the spring leagues to allow replay a limited window to make a quick refinement. Usually this goes unnoticed, but in this case, because there was a line-to-gain involvement, a quick administrative stopdown was required.




[FredFan7]

After Lamar Jackson ran down the tunnel following his touchdown, Ravens offensive lineman Morgan Moses grabs a photographer's camera and uses it in a prop during the celebration.


This should be a foul, but there is a reason why this was not flagged, and it's not something that the officiating department would consider to be an error.


Once the touchdown signal is dropped, the 40-second play clock starts running. Any celebration is constrained in that dead-ball time. While the covering officials will watch for any activity that might be a flag in the immediate continuing action, with a running play clock they must transition to the conversion try down. If they monitor the celebration too long, the officials will not be able to make the ball ready for play, so at some point they do have to transition to the next play.


The disciplinary arm of the league may choose to impose a fine during the week.

[FredFan7]

Grades

R 35 John Hussey: 3.8 - typical solid game for this playoff veteran
U 124 Carl Paganelli: 3.8 - see Hussey
DJ 44 Frank LeBlanc: 3.9 - on the ball all night. Hustled. Kept the lid on out of bounds plays
LJ 101 Carl Johnson: 3.9 - See LeBlanc
FJ 97 Tom Hill: 3.9 - why is he retiring? Still at the top of his game. Solid night.
SJ 56 Allen Baynes: 3.8 - Had a fairly quiet night. Didn't see much of him
BJ 96 Matt Edwards: 3.8 - Nice first divisional playoff game.

Crew: 3.84 - The crew was "there" when needed but mostly stayed out of the way and let the teams play. The were there to keep the tempers and frustrations under control and used good preventative officiating and didn't have to flag unsporting behavior. Very nice job.

[exhockeyref]

Also thought this was a very well-run game. To be fair, it was a pretty straight-ahead game, but the crew was on top of it at all times.

And thanks, FF7, for the explanation of the celebration call/mechanics and replay assist.

Idle thought: Has anyone thought about a new edition of "So You Think You Know Football?" Still a trove of good info, but it could use a little updating. Just a thought...