Buffalo’s most recent prime-time home game before Thursday night ended with an untimed down. On Thursday night, Buffalo’s prime-time home game should have ended with an untimed down.
There was blatant interference on tight end Cade Otton, who was taken out by two Buffalo defenders just a few feet from where the ball landed.
Here’s the play. Taylor Rapp and Christian Benford both mugged Otton.
And, yes, the ball was objectively catchable by Otton. If he hadn’t been eliminated from the play by two guys, he could have caught it.
Somewhat surprisingly, the Buccaneers were not complaining after the game about the lack of a pass interference call in that moment. The only reference to it seemed to come in backhanded fashion — with no followup by the media — from Bucs quarterback Baker Mayfield.
“Looked like a bunch of guys landing on the ground over there,” Mayfield told reporters. “I’m not sure who tripped over who.”
Nobody tripped. Rapp and Benford physically restrained Otton and eventually put him on the ground.
Even with the interference, Tampa Bay receiver Chris Godwin had a shot at making the catch.
“They had a guy pressed on me,” Godwin said after the game, via Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times. “I had to avoid him so I’m a little late to the party. So when I get there, I just tried to look up and find the way. I wasn’t sure whether he grabbed me or not, but by the time I got my head around, I saw the ball coming in low.”
We’ve found no post-game quotes from Otton, Rapp, or Benford about the play.
Yes, the NFL has (inexplicably) applied a different standard to pass interference on Hail Mary plays. The rules contain no such distinction.
This is the operative sentence from the official rulebook: “It is pass interference by either team when any act by a player more than one yard beyond the line of scrimmage significantly hinders an eligible player’s opportunity to catch the ball.”
No one can argue, not even a card-carrying member of Bills Mafia in mid-table dive, that Rapp and Benford did not significantly hinder Otton.
Remember when the NFL was preparing to implement its badly-failed one-year experiment with replay review for pass interference? They wrestled with the creation of a separate standard for Hail Mary plays, which amounts to a concession by the league that, in such moments, it’s to hell with the rules.
Al Michaels, deliberately or not, made a reference to the different standard for Hail Mary plays after the game ended. “You could call penalties on a bunch of guys here if you really wanted to,” he said.
They SHOULD have called penalties on Rapp and Benford, and the Bucs should have had an untimed down from the doorstep of the end zone for a chance at a walk-off win.
And, yes, this is another area where the league had better get its act together while otherwise in the act of cramming gambling dollars into every possible place that dollars can be crammed. The Bucs got screwed out of a chance to win the game because, for whatever reason, the NFL chooses to ignore blatant pass interference on desperation throws to the end zone.