Zebra update. The offensive offside call Saturday night on Denver right guard Quinn Meinerz at the Detroit one-foot line was offensive. The call was nonsensical. It negated a Broncos touchdown that would have made it an 14-point Detroit lead with 16 minutes left in the game. But instead of putting all the blame on the fourth-year official who made the call, down judge Frank LeBlanc, let’s give a good deal of the blame to the league office and senior VP of officiating Walt Anderson for so emphasizing the cleanliness of the line of scrimmage that he’s spooked his officiating roster and forced people like Frank LeBlanc to over-officiate what’s already an impossible game to call consistently.
In trying to get a handle on the Tush Push play—which has seen players from both lines crowd the line of scrimmage so much that violations could be called on virtually every QB-sneak try now—the league has created a dangerous cocktail. The league office hates this play but very likely won’t outlaw it because it’s not causing injury and would seem to be unfairly picking on the team that has virtually perfected it, Philadelphia. Instead the league has leaned on the line-of-scrimmage adjudicators, the down judges, to call this penalty no one had heard of a month ago, offensive offside, in an attempt to gut down on the mayhem at the line pre-snap on the Tush Push. So, instead of calling obvious plays (such as the Kadarius Toney offside eight days ago), officials are now staring intently trying to see if even the helmet of a player is shading the back end of the football at the line. That should never be the intent of this call.
So instead of Denver being down 28-14 as it should have been, the Broncos were down 18. The outcome almost certainly wasn’t affected, but that’s not the point. The point is, officials have too much to worry about in an increasingly microscopically watched profession than to be over-warned about flagging offensive offside.
I remember when I did my week-in-the-life-of-an-officiating-crew story 10 years ago listening to ref Gene Steratore talking to his crew at their Saturday meeting. “Remember,” Steratore told his crew, “we fish for whales. We don’t fish for minnows.” Fishing for minnows is hurting this profession right now.
Kudos, Bengals. The one thing that sometimes gets lost in analyzing quarterbacks coming out of college is the experience factor. But there’s little doubt that 46 college starts in a Power 5 conference helped Brock Purdy adjust quickly to NFL life. Ditto Jake Browning and his 50 starts at Washington.
Browning’s recent 3-0 run—putting up 34, 34 and 27 points—in relief of the injured Joe Burrow has featured throw after fearless throw against three teams that might make the playoffs. Great example on Saturday against the formidable Vikings D, when he’d put up three points through nearly three quarters, then engineered three long scoring drives to send the game to overtime. “If something goes negatively,” coach Zac Taylor told me, “he doesn’t let that bother him the next play. That comes from experience. He doesn’t overreact to good or bad things. Joe’s the same way. We’re fortunate to have two guys that are built very similarly there, because it’s a vital part of becoming a good quarterback.”
I like what Taylor told his team the night before the Minnesota game. “Last night I told our guys, ‘Who’s got the second-longest winning streak in the AFC? We do – with two wins.’ It just paints a picture of what’s happening around the AFC. I said, ‘Don’t worry about everybody else. Everyone else is dealing with their own stuff. Just focus on us and let’s build this into a three-game winning streak.’” It’ll be a tough road to the postseason—at Pittsburgh, at Kansas City, Cleveland—but who thought the Bengals would be in position to get there when Burrow went down?
Dot dot dot. I told Mahomes after Sunday’s game that he’d just passed Joe Namath on the career yardage list. Mahomes 27,944 yards, Namath 27,663. “Wow,” Mahomes said. Big smiles. “That’s amazing. I met Joe at the Super Bowl one year, and he’s still as cool as ever. When I get mentioned with the icons of the game, it’s surreal every time.” … Joe Flacco’s agent, Joe Linta, told me Sunday night he had “two or three” teams inquire about signing Flacco last Monday, when the Browns put him on the practice squad for a day or two, for roster-management purposes. “Joe didn’t want to hear it,” Linta said. “He absolutely wanted to stay in Cleveland. He loves the team. He really gets along well with the coach.” In fact, Kevin Stefanski and Flacco are borderline lookalikes … Wish I could tell you something enlightening about Bill Belichick’s future, but I can’t. It’s most logical he and the Krafts “part ways” (such a milquetoast phrase) after the season, but no one’s told me they will … I might have been a year early on the Jags when I picked them to win AFC home field last summer. The AFC North has basically kayoed them from any chance of it, with Cincinnati, Cleveland and Baltimore handling them in the span of 14 days … Some really interesting games on New Year’s weekend: Miami at Baltimore, Cincinnati at Kansas City, Detroit at Dallas, New Orleans at Tampa possibly for the division title.
Read more in Peter King’s full Football Morning in America column.
