Total Pro Sports
NFL referee Brad Allen appeared to admit that his crew made a critical error in the Carolina Panthers-Tampa Bay Buccaneers game on Saturday.
Baker Mayfield and the Bucs narrowly held on for a tight 16-14 win over Carolina to keep their NFC South hopes alive. The Panthers will win the NFC South via three-way tiebreaker if the Atlanta Falcons defeat the New Orleans Saints. If Tyler Shough and company win, the division goes to Tampa.
There was one questionable officiating moment during the third quarter of the game. Bryce Young’s throw to Rico Dowdle was ruled to be a backwards pass that went out of bounds.
Brad Allen’s crew blew the whistle prematurely to stop the play, resulting in a six-yard loss for Carolina. If they had handled this matter right, Dowdle would have been able to advance the ball forward.
TB-CAR Ref: "The ruling on the field was a backwards pass that went out of bounds"
LMAOOOOO pic.twitter.com/KmuBFNVD3Q
— 🜲 🜲 🜲 (@fsh733) January 3, 2026
The Panthers went on to miss the field goal attempt, a key development in a two-point loss.
Speaking to Fox Sports’ Greg Auman after the game, Brad Allen seemingly admitted that the officials screwed up this play. In the pool report, Allen said replay assist was not used for this play. Mistake number one.
Official pool report via @gregauman on two critical plays in #Panthers loss to #Bucs.
In part, regarding the call on the backward pass to Rico Dowdle … “Because of the erroneous whistle, the Panthers could have had a choice to replay the down.” pic.twitter.com/MORHmA3IPC
— Alex Zietlow (@alexzietlow05) January 4, 2026
Secondly, Allen admitted that it should have been ruled a “dead” play since Dowdle gave himself up. Thus, Carolina should have been given the option to replay the down, something they obviously would have done.
Several questionable calls and non-calls benefited the Bucs, such as a head-scratching offensive PI call against Tetairoa McMillan. However, Carolina was penalized just five games against Tampa Bay’s six fouls, per ESPN.
