Mike Pereira: Officials Violated Replay Rules In Patriots-Ravens, Do It Regularly In 'Undercover' Operation
By Matt Dolloff, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- Rule violations in the NFL are becoming so commonplace in recent weeks, it's even extending to the very people tasked with impartially officiating the games.
Former NFL head of officiating Mike Pereira talked with Kevin Seifert of ESPN about his new book After Further Review that came out in September. He expounded upon a theory he's spoken about in the past regarding NFL referees. Pereira believes that officials regularly receive in-game assistance from replay crews on decisions that NFL rules prohibit from using replay to make. He used a play from the fourth quarter of the Patriots' Monday night win over the Baltimore Ravens to explain what he means.
Before you dust off your pitchforks and torches again, let's be clear: these actions by the referees actually helped the Patriots. The Ravens ran a play from the Patriots' 29-yard line and referee Ed Hochuli originally spotted the ball at the 23. Hochuli quickly changed the spot of the ball, moving it back to the 27-yard line, even though Bill Belichick didn't challenge the spot. Per NFL rules, a challenge was the only way Hochuli could have had the benefit of replay to properly spot the ball.
It's not necessarily a bad thing that the referees want to spot the ball correctly and get a lot of other minor calls right, and access to instant replay certainly makes that job much easier. It is a bad thing that the league, according to Pereira, is breaking its own rules to do so. It's another instance of an alarming lack of transparency from the league offices - and a huge can of worms that, if opened, could shed light on a lot of other questionable tactics regarding officiating and game day procedures.
The NFL's replay official staff, led by Dean Blandino, is allowed to help referees with things like penalty yardage and the game clock, but not matters like the spot of the ball. The sensible thing to do would be to simply loosen the restrictions on the communication between the two staffs, which would at least provide more transparency as to how the league and the officials conduct themselves during games.
The one example Pereira brought up was, for a change, not something that hurt the Patriots. But there's no telling how many other times the league and the referees' "undercover" operation, as Pereira described it, affected the outcomes of games in ways that fans and TV viewers didn't realize due to the apparent lack of transparency at play.
Matt Dolloff is a writer for CBSBostonSports.com. Any opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect that of CBS or 98.5 The Sports Hub. Have a news tip or comment for Matt? Follow him on Twitter @mattdolloff and email him at mdolloff@985thesportshub.com.
