Beanie Bishop Jr. made a heads up play on Thursday against the Cleveland Browns in the final minutes of the game. After the Browns converted on a critical third down to WR Jerry Jeudy, Bishop punched the ball out after Jeudy was seemingly untouched. That resulted in a rare defensive delay of game penalty. At first glance it looked like an act of frustration by Bishop, but he told reporters after the game that he thought the play was still live with Jeudy never getting downed by Joey Porter Jr. or Minkah Fitzpatrick.
Former NFL ref Walt Anderson joined NFL Network’s GameDay Morning on Sunday to explain a couple ref-related things from Thursday Night Football and cleared up why that play was over by the time Bishop punched the ball out.
Downfield, we’ve got the pass and Jeudy catches the ball and here he’s clearly giving himself up,” Anderson said. “And so giving himself up is just like being touched and down by contact. So when he comes in, he’s coming in to really give the ball to the umpire, and then Bishop ends up slapping it out of his hand. So that’s why you had the penalty for delay of game.”
Former head coach Steve Mariucci wasn’t so sure.
“I don’t know what he was doing there,” Mariucci said as he recreated Jeudy’s sudden get up off the ground.
Jeudy popped up off the ground rather quickly. By the way he is walking it does look like he’s given himself up, but it happened pretty quickly and I really don’t fault Bishop for trying to make a play there. There was nothing to lose with the 3rd down already converted and the Browns already well within field goal range. I’m not sure it would have mattered anyways because there was a faint whistle heard on the broadcast after the catch and before the Bishop punch out.
The whistle was probably a little quick because at that point he was still getting up and hadn’t been touched down yet, but a whistle is still a whistle.
Even NBC Sports’ Mike Florio took issue with the ref for the delay of game penalty and praised Bishop for a heads-up play.
