After Further Review: Denver Broncos vs Pittsburgh Steelers

The penalties flew fast and furious, especially in the second half of the game. Lets look at the patterns and problems from the matchup between the Denver Broncos and the Pittsburgh Steelers .

Holding Calls This game was called with a technical zeal for penalty enforcement that is unusual in football. The most obvious case was in holding penalties. Normally over the past few seasons holding is called for actions which impede the defender from a position where the blocker has no leverage other than grasping the opposing team. In the Broncos game the impeding element was devalued to the point of being lost. There were numerous holds called against each team for actions which did not obviously impede. This was very consistent throughout the game and in all three phases – there were questionable holds on special teams, against the defense (probably – I do not grade and review these formally), and against the offense. This does not mean that every call was marginal – the Pat Surtain special teams hold and the Bolles hold with 14 minutes left in the game were two of the most obvious penalty calls I have ever seen. But this game the officials were aggressive on holding, and it's what I wanted to see. I hope this is a one week aberration and not a league wide philosophy change.

Unnecessary Roughness on the Broncos PJ Locke was flagged for a big unnecessary roughness late in the 4th quarter, a call which extended a Pittsburgh drive and took critical time off the clock. Gene Steratore liked the call, but I somewhat disagree. The angle that the back judge had made the play look way worse than it was and a clear penalty. However, other angles showed that the wide receiver lowered his head substantially, and that Locke moved up and away from the head and neck area, so it should have been a no-call. This is not really a bad call, even though it was so consequential, because it was completely consistent with the leagues prioritization of safety. Locke was just unlucky in those circumstances.

Denver had a similar situation go their way on earlier in the game when Nik Bonitto forced Justin Fields out of bounds and Alex Singleton hit him after Fields had taken a full step out of bounds. I would have flagged this play for unnecessary roughness, though it was within the realm of judgment calls. Singleton got lucky and did not draw a flag, where Locke got unlucky and did draw a flag. In an ideal world I would have called each one the opposite way.

Illegal Formation on Garett Bolles Bolles was called for an illegal formation early in the third quarter. This was a really interesting call. First, while he was not obviously in formation, I have a high degree of confidence after reviewing replay that he was barely legal (ironically I think Mike McGlinchey was further back than Bolles). However, I do not consider this a bad call, just one where it is misplaced to blame Bolles. Josh Reynolds, lined up between Bolles and the line judge was a back, but was significantly closer to the line of scrimmage than Bolles was. As a general rule, if wide receivers signal their formation place, officials generally allow them to call if they are on or off the line of scrimmage. The problem, and I mentioned this last week, is that Denver's wide receivers and H backs are crowding the line of scrimmage while declaring themselves backs. The result on this play was that Bolles was almost entirely blocked from view by Reynolds who was at least a foot and a half too far forward. I would have flagged this play as well, though I probably would have called ineligible downfield on Reynolds instead, and the result would have been the same. If Denver chooses to continue to aggressively move its backs past where they should be lining up, I would not be surprised to see more penalties like this crop up.

Official Evaluation There were some real highs and lows in this game. The wings were as good as can be in spotting the ball. The officials were very active, especially in the first half of the game, in situation and player management to help keep things under control. Back Judge Jonah Monroe had an absurdly good game, probably the best Back Judging I have seen in a Broncos game in years. He did a great job supporting his crew. I only graded one bad call in the game, a missed Pittsburgh hold that was both impactful and obvious in the first quarter. I graded seven questionable calls in the game, five of which benefited Denver. This was not the type of officiating I prefer, as there were too many calls and I disagree with the philosophy on holds, but this was a good game from the guys in stripes.

There's been some comments on the misplacement of the ball on the Nix scramble for the first down early in the game. It appears he was "giving himself up" at the end of the play. Has that rule been changed, or does it differ if you are sliding feet first versus diving head first? I know the rule used to be the ball is spotted where you start your slide, not where your knee hits the ground. But does that rule only apply to a feet first slide, or has the rule been changed recently?

This is an interesting one. Any player giving themselves up by sliding is down immediately as soon as a part of their body other than hands and feet touch the ground. This did not used to be the rule (it used to be only feet first), but I do not recall when the rule changed. The problem is that the player has to clearly be giving themselves up AND have a part of their body touch the ground. This is really hard to clearly officiate, and the crude rule of thumb is to assume that the ball was a full yard behind their body when they clearly gave up, and then round down to the next hash mark (full yard). This is not a rule, but a mechanic that officials tend to approximately follow. I think you are right, and that Thomas thought Nix gave himself up earlier than he did and counted backwards. The result was unfair and a bad call

What's the point of having challenges if you're going to use replay assistant to fix incorrect calls without coaches challenging?

Honestly, there is very little point of having challenges anymore. The internal systems the officials have gets it right most of the time now. Things have changed a lot since challenges first became a part of the rules, and every year the NFL strives to increase the accuracy of review systems while also decreasing the time it takes to perform these reviews. Challenges fill in very small gaps in the system, and we work every year to decrease that gap and make challenges more and more irrelevant.

As always, feel free to ask questions in the comments. While I rarely comment on other games, if you have any rules questions from other NFL games I am happy to either reply in the comments or if the matter is of enough concern in next weeks column.