Sunday night’s heavyweight meeting between the Detroit Lions and Philadelphia Eagles ended in rather anticlimactic fashion.
With 1:47 left in the fourth quarter, an apparent Lions stop on 3rd-and-8 was overturned when cornerback Rock Ya-Sin was flagged for pass interference against Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown. The penalty gave Philadelphia a fresh set of downs, and effectively helped them ice the 16-9 ball game
Was the action worthy of a penalty, though? You be the judge:
According to Section 5, Article 1 of the NFL rulebook, pass interference occurs 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.” In addition, “when the ball is in the air, eligible offensive and defensive receivers have the same right to the path of the ball and are subject to the same restrictions.”
According to referee Alex Kemp, Brown was indeed significantly hindered on the play.
“The official observed the receiver’s arm getting grabbed and restricting him from going up to make the catch,” Kemp told pool reporter Zach Berman after the game. “So, the ball was in the air, there was a grab at the arm, restricted him and he called defensive pass interference.”
Looking at the clip above, which is the same the replay official would have had available to potentially overturn the call on the field, one can see why the officials viewed the play as worthy of penalization. However, that does not make throwing a flag the correct decision.
There was, after all, some hand-fighting by both players even when the ball was already in the air. You could, for example, make the argument that Brown’s push-off against Ya-Sin also robbed him of his right to the ball. The line between what is and what is not penalty-worthy is subjective, of course, but in this particular case it was clearly drawn between push-off and hand-grab.
On a night when the officials were relatively lenient as far as contact between receivers and defenders was concerned, this call was an outlier: it was the only pass interference penalty of the game, and one of only two coverage penalties thrown (the other being a hold against Detroit’s Amik Robertson earlier in the fourth quarter).
Brown, unsurprisingly, was happy about that.
“Needed one,” he said in the postgame locker room. “They were letting us play today. That’s something that I have to be better with. It’s tough when you are getting grabbed and you get held, but the ref [lets you] play through it. And like I said, I got to do a better job and hang my head on being physical. So, I just got to do what I got to do.”
His Lions counterpart, who said he did not ask for an explanation, also gave a mostly diplomatic answer.
“A.J. Brown, really good player, All-Pro player,” Ya-Sin said. “Sometimes those kind of players get those kind of calls, you know what I mean? It is what it is. I got to do abetter job. Got to do a better job.”
Obviously, there was no guarantee the Lions would come back from their seven-point deficit even if they had gotten the stop. However, they did not even get a chance.
For a prime time game to end on a somewhat dubious penalty is disappointing not just for Detroit but the neutral observer as well.
