Perhaps Mike Tomlin had gotten tired of losing touchdowns when he threw his challenge flag in the second quarter on Monday. On their previous drive, the Steelers lost out on a touchdown because of a facemask penalty on Broderick Jones. Their second nullified touchdown, however, had nothing to do with penalties. And his reasoning for throwing the challenge flag is not entirely convincing.
“I didn’t know that they used replay assist”, Tomlin explained after the Steelers’ 26-18 win over the Giants when asked why he challenged the reversed call of a touchdown. “I really wasn’t really clear on why it was ruled a non-touchdown. I went to the flag. Had I known they used replay assist, obviously I wouldn’t have thrown because you’re not allowed to throw when they use replay assist”.
The only problem is that all scoring plays are subject to automatic review. This is why you often see a delay between a touchdown and a point-after try because the league is reviewing the play to confirm that it was a touchdown. Tomlin, as he says, is well aware of this fact.
And there is a penalty that comes along with challenging an unreviewable play: you lose a timeout. Mike Tomlin isn’t the first head coach to lose a timeout for unwittingly challenging an unreviewable play. Jim Schwartz of the Detroit Lions challenged a touchdown scored by the Houston Texans in 2012. The only problem is they were already reviewing the play—automatically—and they overturned it anyway. Because he attempted a challenge, however, he lost the timeout. Presumably, it is a rule aimed at discouraging attempts to delay the game.
In Tomlin’s case, the officials ruled that Steelers WR George Pickens had scored on the field. Upon further review, however, they found that the receiver only got one foot inbounds, albeit twice.
Considering they went from ruling it as a touchdown to negating the touchdown, it’s reasonable to assume Mike Tomlin should have been aware that they “used replay assist”. I can come up with only one plausible excuse for the Steelers head coach, however.
The only way Tomlin can justify throwing the flag is if he assumed that the on-field officials changed their mind. In that case, the Steelers could have challenged the play because it would be a non-scoring play. I’m guessing that is what Tomlin thought, even if he didn’t have good reason for thinking it.
Many Steelers fans question Tomlin when it comes to managing games, particularly time management. I’m sure they enjoyed that sequence most of all because it provided fuel for their furnace. In truth, even if Tomlin assumed the on-field officials reversed their initial ruling, he could have taken steps to clarify before throwing the flag.
