The officials took one touchdown off the board for the Pittsburgh Steelers yesterday. QB Kenny Pickett appeared to have found WR Diontae Johnson in the back of the end zone about 10 minutes into the first quarter, only to have it ruled incomplete.
The general consensus is that the call was wrong, but the Steelers didn’t challenge, and then they lost a fumble on the next play. So perhaps the touchdown they did score in the second half was a make-up call. RB Najee Harris scored from five yards out, but the officials picked up a flag thrown that in all likelihood was intended for TE Darnell Washington.
“There’s holding on every play”, NFL analyst and former Steelers DL Chris Hoke said on the KDKA Extra Point postgame show yesterday. “But this one was out in the open. This one was blatant, in open field. I’m not sure how they pulled that flag up”.
Pittsburgh ran out of 11 personnel from the five-yard line with the receivers stacked to the right and Washington in-line on the left. WR Allen Robinson II motioned play-side pre-snap, punching through to the second level with Washington on the edge engaging LB Germaine Pratt—with a little too much gusto.
Truth be told, it was a pretty blatant hold, with a clean fistful of the back of Pratt’s jersey. It was a bad no-call, but then, lots of holds both ways don’t get called.
“He was bear-hugging him. That was an absolute hold”, Hoke said, wondering if it didn’t ultimately result in a penalty because the defender didn’t protest the infraction. “I cannot believe that they got away with that. That shouldn’t have been seven”.
It really was a textbook hold even in practice. Many holding penalties might be ignored if they don’t affect the play, but this one very clearly did. Had Washington not clung to Pratt, Harris might not get to the edge and score.
Of course, even if he hadn’t, it only would have been second and goal from somewhere within the five-yard line. They would have still been in favorable circumstances. They could have scored on the very next play—though if a flag had been called for the hold, they would have been pushed outside the 10-yard line.
For his part, Bengals head coach Zac Taylor took the high road, via transcript. “The initial call was holding and they decided it wasn’t holding” was all he had to say after the game when asked about the flag being picked up. “That’s all there is to it”.
For whatever reason, the officials decided to pick up the flag, though for accuracy’s sake, they certainly shouldn’t have. I don’t know if that qualifies under Mike Tomlin’s concept of football justice, but the officials took away a touchdown, and they gave one back. That’s all there is to it.
