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Carollo: 'He did get him in the facemask'
BY JASON WILDE
GREEN BAY – As the Green Bay Packers players cleared out their lockers, packed up their belongings and went their separate ways into the offseason Monday morning, they did so wondering what might have been had one or two plays gone their way during Sunday’s 51-45 overtime loss to the Arizona Cardinals in the NFC Wild Card playoffs.
And according to former NFL referee Bill Carollo, the officials got the call on the game-deciding play – Michael Adams’ blitzing sack of Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, which resulted in a fumble that Karlos Dansby returned 17 yards for the winging touchdown – wrong.
Carollo, who retired after 20 years as an NFL official in 2008 and now works as the Big Ten Conference’s director of officiating, told ESPNMadison’s Steve “The Homer” True Monday that referee Scott Green and his crew missed what should have been a 15-yard facemask or unnecessary roughness penalty on Adams, who caught Rodgers’ facemask with his right hand and pulled on it after forcing Rodgers’ fumble.
“Certainly (Adams) made contact, dislodged the ball, and continued and hit the quarterback. He did get him in the facemask; you can’t hit him above the shoulders with anything,” said Carollo, who watched the game on television. “In this case, probably a personal foul could’ve been called on that play. (Green) didn’t necessarily rule that it was a pass, so it couldn’t be roughing the passer, but he could have an unnecessary roughness on that play for grabbing the facemask.”
This time, with Dansby blitzing through the A-gap behind a tackle-end twist, Rodgers had no one open and held onto the ball. As Rodgers pump-faked and pulled the ball back in, Adams hit the ball with his right hand, knocking it loose, and his follow-through hit Rodgers in the facemask. The ball deflected off of Rodgers’ right foot – something Rodgers said Monday he did not do intentionally – and right to Dansby, who returned it for the touchdown.
The timing of Adams’ grabbing of the facemask is also an issue. Although the ball was loose when Adams’ hand hit Rodgers in the face, the Cardinals had not yet gained possession. So, had Green called the penalty, not only would the touchdown been wiped out, but the Packers would have retained possession.
“If a penalty was called on that play, you’d have to throw the flag, and then determined, when did the foul occur? That makes a big difference in this case because it’s really close,” Carollo explained. “In this case, though, when the facemask was grabbed, the ball was still loose, which means it was still in the Packers’ possession. So they have not lost possession. The foul happened before the ball was recovered in the air. If the foul happened after the fact, and the Arizona player had the ball, then Arizona would keep the ball with the penalty assessed from that spot.
“In this case, I believe the penalty occurred before Arizona recovered the ball in the air, so it would be a previous-spot foul: 15 yards from the previous spot.”
That means the Packers would have had the ball first-and-10 at their own 39-yard line.
The league issued what it called a "rule explanation" Monday, saying a facemask penalty is a judgment call that is not reviewable by instant replay. However, the statement made no clarification of whether the call was missed.
The NFL rulebook states that "no player shall twist, turn, or pull the facemask of an opponent in any direction." If they do, it is a 15-yard personal foul, as the league eliminated its 5-yard incidental facemask penalty before the 2008 season, meaning that minor infractions were not to be called and leaving officials to decide if an incident in which a player grabs an opponent's facemask is worthy of a 15-yard personal foul.
The rulebook states that a play on which a player "incidentally grasps" an opponent's facemask in a manner that "is not a twist, turn or pull" is not a penalty. But as Carollo pointed out, the rules are different for quarterbacks, who aren’t allowed to be hit above the shoulder pads.
There also was a helmet-to-helmet hit on Rodgers two plays before the game-ending play, when defensive end Bertrand Berry came in high on Rodgers but no call was made – other than the holding call on left guard Daryn Colledge.
“It normally is (up to the referee) on that play,” said Carollo, an NFL official from 1989 through 2008 and a crew chief from 1996 through 2008. “It’s difficult to look at two different situations at the same time, whether it was the last play or the play (two) before. Once you’re focused in and you see a hold, you want to throw the flag, make sure you’ve got the right number, make sure there’s advantage or disadvantage given … the referee made the decision to call holding, but at the same time, he didn’t see the defender coming in and the quarterback got hit.”
But it was the fumble and facemask-that-wasn’t that were the hot topic for fans and commentators Monday, as ESPN devoted time to the play on NFL Live, Around the Horn and Jim Rome Is Burning.
“You don’t want to be talking about the game the next day, based on a couple calls you make – especially down the stretch, or (if) you’ve got overtime or a close game like this,” said Carollo, whose job with the Big Ten requires him to break down the film of the conference’s officials and grade their performances. “There were a lot of great plays in the game, there were some terrific calls in the game by the officials also. But that’s what you get paid for. The reality is, there is some controversy that goes with that last play of the game.
“Our goal (as officials) is to get the calls right. We learned early on in the NFL, going back to the ‘80s when I started, that these games are too big (to get it wrong). We make mistakes. We might make 3.8 to 4 mistakes a game on a Sunday and maybe 5 mistakes in college on a Saturday. Because those mistakes happen and the games are so important, officials, we’re not hoping to make a mistake. But they’re going to happen; we’re human, and errors are going to occur. We want to get it right.”
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the final play was what might have happened had the ball not caromed off Rodgers’ foot and to Dansby. Had the ball hit the ground instead, Carollo said Green’s crew might have called the play an incomplete pass – or if a fumble was the initial ruling, it might have been overturned by instant replay. In overtime, all replay reviews are initiated by the replay booth.
“On that type of play, and I worked that position, your No. 1 concern is, is it a pass or a fumble? You’re locked into the quarterback, so you’re watching him, and protecting him, that should be your first overall responsibility,” Carollo said. “It’s probably the toughest call for a head referee to make, is it a pass or a fumble? It’s very close – was the arm going forward, or did it stop, and did the passing motion stop, or was it a fumble. In this case, they ruled fumble on the play and the defensive player caught it in the air, so it didn’t matter if it was a fumble or a pass because he got it cleanly in the air. Had it hit the ground, it would have been a big issue.”
That’s because The Tuck Rule – famously at the center of a controversy in a 2001 AFC Divisional playoff game between the New England Patriots and Oakland Raiders and involving now-Packers cornerback Charles Woodson – would have been in effect. And Woodson, who forced what referee Walt Coleman initially ruled to be a Tom Brady fumble only to see it overturned by replay, would have been on the team that benefitted from the call, Carollo said.
“A pass is still a pass until by rule, it’s defined as not a pass,” Carollo said. “And on this play, when (Rodgers) starts his motion going forward and he tries to stop it and gets hit at the same time, he has to continue and stop that passing motion himself and bring it all the way back to his body. Then the play ends as a pass play and now he becomes a runner and if he gets hit, now it’s a fumble.
“Even though it kind of looked like a fumble and the quarterback losing the ball, more than likely, from my experience, replay would have stepped in after the touchdown was ruled, they would have reviewed the play and they would have made that final determination (of), was that a pass or a fumble? But it had a lot of earmarks of a pass – even though most people think it’s a fumble. … The whole idea is, we don’t want any cheap fumbles, so if it’s 50/50, really tight, close, we’d rather have an incomplete pass than a fumble.”
Carollo added that had the play gone to the replay booth, the replay official, by rule, could not have pointed out the facemask penalty during his review.
Speaking of Woodson, Carollo also said Green’s crew missed what should have been an offensive pass interference penalty on Larry Fitzgerald on Fitzgerald’s 33-yard touchdown catch-and-run, when he knocked Woodson down before catching Kurt Warner’s pass.
“You can have a collision if they’re both looking for the ball. You can have people run into each other and have nothing if they’re both looking for the ball,” Carollo said. “But I think Fitzgerald had his back to the quarterback before he made his cut, and (even if) he didn’t see Woodson, the responsibility is on the offense to know where he’s going. He knows his route.
“At the same time, the defense can’t cut him off, but it looked like Fitzgerald ran through him and knocked him down, and of course caught the pass. That’s, again, a judgment call not covered by replay. They didn’t call anything, but normally something like that, something is called (on the offensive player) unless it’s incidental tripping.”