The first half of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ game against the New York Jets was pretty rough on all fronts. The Steelers were getting outplayed, Russell Wilson wasn’t looking very good, and there were some questionable penalties that seemed to really tilt the game in favor of the Jets.
One of those penalties was a two-point swing from the penalty on Minkah Fitzpatrick for “leverage” on a blocked extra point.
Instead of keeping the score at 13-6 after the Jets’ second touchdown, they then went for two after Fitzpatrick’s penalty and made it a 15-6 game. Going from a one-possession to a two-possession game is pretty rough, especially when the penalty really seemed like a bad call to begin with.
Cameron Heyward described his frustration with that play and how the refs handled it.
“The funny thing about it is the gap Minkah jumped through is called the jumper gap around the league,” Heyward said via his Not Just Football podcast. “It was crazy to take away points when you give a team an extra opportunity. We went from giving up six and getting off the field to now giving up eight, and that could decide a game.
“I don’t think the ref felt very comfortable doing that. There was a lot of talk during the game after that and it was like, ‘Why are we still having a debate?’ You should feel confident in your answer, and if you don’t, that leads to not everybody knowing the rule book and not everybody understanding what’s going on in that situation.”
The Steelers are obviously well-coached on these plays by Danny Smith, who has engineered the best special teams block units in the NFL. If they aren’t even sure what the rules are, you can assume the clarity is lacking around the league. Fitzpatrick’s hands made contact as he jumped over the pile, but he did not push off or use leverage at all.
Smith was fired up at the refs after having that block taken away, but it was all made right later when Dean Lowry blocked a field goal.
New York told Mike Tomlin that refs blew that call on the extra point. Heyward mentioned that New York should be able to make those adjustments in-game. They randomly overturned the spot of the ball to give the Jets a first down at one point. Why can’t they overturn other things like that?
“If we’re gonna ridicule refs, we have to be ridiculing New York as well because they have every opportunity to over change the call like that,” Heyward said.
It isn’t entirely clear what New York can and cannot overturn, but that also feeds into the lack of clarity with what are often critical moments in games. Nobody wants to see penalties erase exciting plays, but that is exactly what happened last Sunday. Fortunately the Steelers left no doubt with the score and those two extra points meant next to nothing in the long run.
