Everybody’s favorite NFL officiating punching bag, Jeff Triplette, explained the Sunday night gaffe in which his crew awarded a first down to the Washington Redskins, only to retroactively take it away one play later to bring on fourth down. But it’s not so much an explanation as it is a pathetic excuse that glosses over the impact of his crew’s error.
In case you missed it: On a potential game-tying drive with under two minutes remaining, the Redskins were stopped just short of a first down on a second-down pass, setting up what should have been third-and-short. But the chain gang on the sideline believed officials had ruled the play resulted in a first down, so they moved the markers accordingly.
On what they believed to be first-and-10, the Redskins threw a 25-yard pass that was dropped by tight end Fred Davis. After that play, however, the chains were moved backward and the Redskins suddenly faced a fourth-and-1. That first-down pass had actually come on third down, Triplette said, and the first down never happened. The Redskins ran an unsuccessful play on fourth down and the game ended. There was confusion in the field and a combination of anger and disbelief in the NBC broadcast booth.
Triplette talked about it after the game with Zac Boyer of The Washington Times:
“We signaled third down on the field. The stakes were moved incorrectly. After that play, we said it was still third down. We had signaled third down prior to the play starting. The chains just got moved incorrectly.”
Oh! The chains just got moved incorrectly. A simple mistake! Nothing to see here, let’s move along. THE CHAINS MOVING INCORRECTLY IS THE WHOLE ISSUE, JEFF! Those chains are an extension of you. It doesn’t matter if you knew it was third down, it matters that no one else did. The Redskins believed the marker and called a long first-down pass instead of a short-yardage third-down play based on the miscommunication.
The gaffe by Triplette’s crew didn’t drop that ill-advised long pass on third-and-1, nor did it wrest the ball away from Pierre Garcon on the fourth-down conversion. It didn’t lose the special teams battle or call only two plays for Alfred Morris in the second half.
What it did was put the Redskins on an uneven playing field during the team’s final possession. It was a major error that was made worse because Triplette incorrectly believed it was better to let Washington believe it was first down rather than stop the clock to get things sorted out.
The NFL acknowledged the botched call on Monday, saying:
In this situation where there is obvious confusion as to the status of the down, play should have been stopped prior to third down and the correct down communicated to both clubs. This should have occurred regardless of the fact that Washington had no timeouts and it was inside two minutes.
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