Commanding quarterback Jayden Daniels used his mobility to buy nearly 13 seconds to set up and throw the pass that became the Hail Mary that lifted Washington over Chicago on Sunday. Helping him in this regard were two cases of unsolicited detention.
Simms and I talked about it on Monday PFT Live. Both non-calls increased Daniels’ attempt to serve up a ball that had a chance of being hit and caught.
It doesn’t change the outcome. A lot of missed calls happen in football. The Rams solidified their win over the Vikings to start Week 8 with a no-call facemask. No protest can be filed, no matter how egregious the missed call may have been.
Yet officials indeed failed to cite at least two notable examples of commanders’ adherence to the Hail Mary. Whether they didn’t see the company or thought it wouldn’t matter because the Hail Mary is the ultimate camel-through-the-eye-of-the-needle game, they didn’t drop a flag.
And yes, the Hail Mary play routinely involves pushing and shoving that would otherwise be considered pass interference. For years, however, the league has deliberately allowed a looser standard in these situations, as evidenced by the difficulty five years ago in subjecting pass interference calls and non-calls to replay review while removing Hail Mary plays from the frame. -frame search for contact.
Either way, when pass interference is blatant on a Hail Mary, it’s called. (Or, as in the case of the Fail Mary, it immediately ends a ban on the regular game officials.)
The holding that took place prior to the NFL’s last successful Hail Mary was quite blatant. And there was no call. It’s okay for Commanders fans to admit it; they’re not going to take away the victory.
The broader point is that no matter what the NFL does to improve its officialdom, there’s still enough incompetence lurking in the execution of the job to make people suspect that something else might be going on.
Even if it isn’t.
