Mile High Report
Breaking down the excellent officiating and stingy spotting from the week 11 matchup between the Denver Broncos and the Atlanta Falcons
In the Denver Broncos 38-6 demolition of the Atlanta Falcons, there were 10 accepted penalties and two reviews. These numbers show average official involvement, but the result from the field was more impressive. Here were some notable calls from the officials.
Garett Bolles had a rare personal foul called on him for unnecessary roughness. In this case, I am fairly confident that the judgment of umpire Tab Slaughter was that Bolles threw his body into a player on the ground. This was a pretty borderline call if so, however, it both fit the letter of the rule and was a deescalating call. I was a bit surprised to see it in this matchup, but there were several parts of the game where tensions between the two teams got abnormally high. Calling something like this foul to the absolute letter of the rule is a good way to help both teams calm down.
There were questions last week about a very questionable Patrick Mahomes call that easily could have been called intentional grounding. I wanted to explain intentional grounding a bit more this week because Bo Nix had a pass that very easily could have been called intentional grounding but was not. The standard for intentional grounding penalty is that the passer threw a ball, under imminent threat from the defense, with no realistic chance of completion. Intentional grounding is ignored when a quarterback outside the pocket throws a pass that reaches the line of scrimmage. This standard sucks to officiate, because there is enormous ambiguity in a realistic chance of completion. This term is defined “a pass thrown in the direction of and lands in the vicinity of an originally eligible receiver”, but the definition still does not provide us much help. Players in the NFL are so fast, and routes cross the field in such a way, that it is really impossible for officials to know what is realistic. Plus option route mistakes are relatively common, and we do not want to call the receiver making the wrong break a penalty. So officials call intentional grounding very generously. This is the type of standard that can change rapidly, because its not really a rule but rather a choice by the NFL officiating department on how the rule will be interpreted.
Early in the third quarter, there were two different replay reviews. The first was of a Lil’Jordan Humphrey incomplete pass that was reversed into a catch and fumble. Mike Periera expressed his astonishment that the call was overturned, believing it did not meet the elements of a catch. While I was thrilled for Denver that the call was overturned, I agreed with Periera. A catch requires two feet and something else, and I was comfortable with the notion that Humphrey had one foot and something else,...
