The NFL has acknowledged a bad call from Week 5 that went against the Buccaneers, and the league’s own breakdown makes it clear the penalty was put on the wrong player.
During Tampa Bay’s game, defensive lineman Calijah Kancey was flagged for illegal hands to the face. But in the league’s weekly officiating video, NFL officiating and rules analyst Walt Anderson said it was actually Cowboys guard Tyler Booker who made the contact with Kancey’s face. The mistake was then communicated the wrong way, and the yardage was assessed against the Bucs instead of Dallas.
Anderson didn’t soften the explanation. He said that when a miss is this obvious, the league office should step in right away and correct it. He pointed to the Competition Committee’s instruction that officials can use objective information to make sure they have the right player before the penalty is enforced.
“Were going to have a foul called on No. 94 on the defensive team for illegal hands to the face,” Anderson said. “The only action relative to any hands is really by the offensive player here.
So this is the type of play that the Competition Committee has instructed officiating that if objective information in terms of just asking the officials, ‘Are we sure we have the right number of the player here?’ that we can end up assisting with this.
Because it’s clearly not a foul by No. 94.
If there is illegal use of hands, it’s obviously by No. 52 of the offense.”
Kancey knew right away the flag was wrong, but there was nothing he could do in the moment to undo it. The New York officiating office, Anderson said, had the chance to fix the call and did not.
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