Mile High Report
Breaking down the officiating from the wild card game between the Broncos and the Bills
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.
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.
It is against the rules for an offensive player to pull a runner forward. They are allowed to push the runner from...
