The most-discussed hit of the week happened on Monday night in Seattle, when Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman jumped offside on a field-goal try, didn’t hear the whistle, touched the football before it was kicked, and hit the plant leg of Bills kicker Dan Carpenter after he kicked the football. The specific outcome would have been a foul regardless of whether the play had been whistled dead.
In his weekly officiating video for the media, NFL senior V.P. of officiating Dean Blandino explained that Sherman would have been (or at least should have been) flagged for roughing the kicker, if the play hadn’t been whistled dead. Sherman touched the ball just before it was kicked, Carpenter kicked it, and then Sherman hit Carpenter’s plant leg in a bang-bang-bang sequence.
“Touching the ball doesn’t negate roughing the kicker,” Blandino said, adding that the roughing the kicker is avoided only if the defender hits the kicker on the follow through after blocking a kick.
Because the play was whistled dead, Sherman should have been flagged for unnecessary roughness. He ultimately was penalized for nothing, in a clear mistake by the officials.
That hit sparked a sequence that contained multiple other potential problems not addressed by Blandino in the video, including the bizarre delay-of-game foul sparked by an official hovering over the ball until late in the play clock and the question of whether the Bills should have been flagged for intentional grounding for a snap and spike aimed at allowing Carpenter to return to action but that occurred when the clock wasn’t running prior to the snap.
