touchdown nullified
latest NFL Ref call ..
are you kidding me?

I was in a car driving back from Atlanta to our home in the Low Country with only the ESPN play-by-play texts to follow the Detroit Lion game yesterday.

I was reminded of the stories of how baseball games back in the day would be ‘re-created’ by studio announcers based on a pitch by pitch account that came across by telegraph connections.

Ronald Reagan would tell stories of recreated Chicago Cubs games when he was an announcer at WHO-AM (The radio voice of Iowa) and one time the lines went and he had no update for 5 minutes or so.

Reagan recounted that in his version of the game, he had the batter foul off 27 pitches in a run until the connection was restored.

Anyway, there I was with my phone on my knee waiting for each new update to appear on the screen … and wait.

12 plays.

In realtime it was about 15 minutes.

In game time it was all after the 2 minute warning.

I thought my phone locked on the next to last play.

A little playing field was shown on the screen of my phone with endzone in pink.

I read the last update, 3 & Goal at the 9 about 20 times and finally looked off through the window.

In the reflection I could just see my phone and I figured it would finally refresh and the pink screen would be gone which would mean the Lions scored or didn’t score and the game was over.

3 & Goal at the 9.

3 & Goal at the 9.

Wait some more.

3 & Goal at the 9.

Finally my screen flashed and when it reloaded all is showed was the final score.

I had to click a few buttons to finally read the last play and to read for the 2nd time in the drive, Touchdown Nullified.

Twice in the same drive.

Touchdown Nullified.

The complete burst of text for that final play was (shotgun) J. Goff pass short left to A. St. Brown to Put 8 for 1 yard. Lateral to J. Goff for 8 yards. TOUCHDOWN NULLIFIED by Penalty. PENALTY on DET – A. St. Brown. Offensive Pass Interference. 0 yards, enforced at PIT 9 – No Play.

No wonder it took so long for my phone to refresh.

Without there being a play, the time was over so the game was over, so said the Refs.

And the Refs had a lot to say.

In the last 12 plays, 5 penalties were called.

Lions had the ball at the 1 and two penalties later, the Lions were back on 16.

Some will argue it was bad football by the Lions.

But it certainly seemed like there was more than just football going on down there.

Much later I was able to read that what happened on the last play was:

“It is a pretty complex play. We had the original player who had the ball, lose possession of the ball. So, we had to decide if that was a fumble or a backwards pass because of course we have restrictions on the recovery of a fumble inside two minutes. We ruled that it was a backward pass, so the recovering player was able to advance it and that recovering player advanced it for a touchdown. We had to rule on that and then because of the offensive pass interference, it negates the touchdown. Because it is an offensive foul, we do not extend the half. Therefore, there is no score and there is no replay of the down. That’s the way the rule is written,” [Head Ref] Cheffers said.

I hate to same old Lions but much the way the same old Lions have done all my life, they somehow, someway find a different way to lose a football game.

Was it a bad call?

Was it a bunch of bad calls?

It certainly was a bunch of calls.

As Head Coach Dan Campbell said, “I don’t even want to get into it, because it’s not going to change anything. We still lost,” Campbell said. “It’s — I mean, you think you score, you don’t score, and then you think you’re going to have another play. Replay it or back it up, one more shot. And it doesn’t. And that’s just, I guess that’s the way it’s written in the rulebook. So, that’s frustrating. But there again, it should never come to that.”

You want to be good.

You want to lucky.

But as Lefty Gomez said years ago, ‘I’d rather be luck than good.’