The Pittsburgh Steelers and the New York Giants both cost themselves touchdowns Monday night with unnecessary penalties. For the Steelers, it was RT Broderick Jones flagged for a facemask. For the Giants, the officials called WR Malik Nabers for an illegal shift, which sparked a debate on the broadcast.
“They said I was moving forward”, Nabers said on the negated touchdown versus the Steelers, via the Giants’ website. “I got set, and then I motioned again. We had I think 12 seconds left on the clock, so I tried to get set as fast as possible and then motion. But I guess they called it, said I was moving forward. I mean, we looked at the play. [We] had a different say on it, but refs won again”.
To be fair to Nabers, “refs won again” is a sentiment every NFL fan is going to relate to at one time or another. The Steelers have been on the receiving end of some bad calls this year, even in this game on Alex Highsmith’s roughing the passer penalty. Minkah Fitzpatrick has a lot more to complain about than the Giants and Malik Nabers do.
The biggest reason is the fact that Nabers is actually wrong because he clearly illegally shifted. An offensive player motioning as he does is required to set before the snap. If you watch the replay, you can see that he hasn’t even stopped by the time they snap the ball. That is an illegal shift that saved the Steelers four points. The refs won because they successfully did their jobs.
It seemed to me that Malik Nabers was trying to be diplomatic throughout his postgame press conference, which isn’t easy. He is a very talented rookie on a bad team that is getting in its own way. In this case, though, he got in his own way and negated a Giants touchdown to the Steelers’ benefit.
His head coach, Brian Daboll, took a more diplomatic approach without getting caught up in the emotions of the game. He did acknowledge that they shifted, and that the officials flagged them for it. It’s the sort of thing bad teams like the Giants do to themselves. The Steelers have done some bad things to themselves as well. If they want to be a good team in the second half, they need to clean them up.
The NFL rulebook states that teams may have multiple players in motion, multiple times, before the snap. All players in motion, however, “must come to a complete stop and be in a set position simultaneously for at least one full second” following the final shift. Considering Nabers wasn’t even finished moving when the Giants snapped the ball, he has no case.
The officials are fallible, but so are the teams. Both the Steelers and the Giants know this well. They both get in their own way, even if the Steelers have a better track record for overcoming it. At some point, every team is going to suffer due to the officiating—but sometimes they earn it.
