On Sunday, the Buffalo Bills cruelly had a Kelvin Benjamin touchdown taken off the board when the league office overturned the ruling on the field of a catch. It was a baffling ruling, because quite honestly it’s not clear how in the world it was overturned.
Apologies. Here's the #Bills' Kelvin Benjamin "no catch." Was ruled TD on field and overturned on replay because NFL. pic.twitter.com/8WPQ9ps0bZ
— Arthur Arkush (@ArthurArkush) December 24, 2017
Even the top experts in the field agreed on this.
Not in the studio but on the scoreboard here in Jerry's world, don't see how the Buffalo TD was overturned. Not clear and obvious the toe didn't drag. There is a line behind the toe when he drags it. Am I missing something?
— Mike Pereira (@MikePereira) December 24, 2017
regarding the Buffalo no touchdown, nothing more irritating to an official than to make a great call and then someone in a suit in an office in New York incorrectly reverses it. It is more and more obvious that there isn't a standard for staying with the call on the field.
— Mike Pereira (@MikePereira) December 24, 2017
Here's my video further explaining why the Kelvin Benjamin TD should have stood in New England:https://t.co/7YSKrNa01U
— Dean Blandino (@DeanBlandino) December 24, 2017
On Tuesday, Bills owner Terry Pegula expressed his frustration with the entire situation, speaking on a team-produced radio show, per ESPN’s Mike Rodak.
“They obviously weren’t looking at the same television the rest of the country was looking at, were they? You know what, you can probably find somebody in this country that disagrees [with the catch], and I know one guy would be [NFL Senior VP of Officiating] Al Riveron sitting in New York City. But everybody I talked to — and they’re not Bills fans and they’re not necessarily anti-Patriots — they’re all baffled by that call, which just wasn’t consistent with what replay [should be] … I don’t know what’s going on, but we have to fix it. And I’m not saying that as the owner of the Bills, I’m saying that as a football fan. We can’t have stuff like this happening in our league.””
Now, it’s important to note that one overturned touchdown would have had little to do with the overall outcome of the game. After all, the Bills ended up losing 37-16.
The bigger overall issue here is that there really is no way the NFL can say it has a good rule for what is and what isn’t a catch. We saw this same mind-boggling issue come up just one week before when Jesse James — to everyone watching — crossed the goal line with the ball in hand. Yet because the ball bobbled when he hit the ground, even though he hadn’t yet been touched by a defender, it was ruled incomplete and the Pittsburgh Steelers ended up losing to the same Patriots.
The catch rule must be changed. The rule as it is now is so convoluted and goes against common sense, and there’s no doubt the NFL can do better.