Crucial Week 17 calls could impact playoffs
The NFL is approaching the five-year anniversary of a non-call on a blatant pass interference in the NFC championship game that helped the Rams advance to the Super Bowl over the Saints.
It’s a black eye the league would like to forget, a difficult task in a season that’s been shaped to a significant degree by the men in stripes, particularly the debacle in Dallas on Saturday night that kicked off Week 17 and has ramifications that could ripple through the road to Super Bowl 58.
Crucial choices by coaches also proved pivotal over the weekend.
Lions lament
In Dallas, Lions coach Dan Campbell went for 2 three times instead of kicking the extra point to all but certainly force overtime. That aggression paid off briefly but a late flag changed everything and the Lions left Dallas feeling they would have won the game had it been officiated correctly.
Detroit’s 20-19 loss allowed the Cowboys to stretch their home winning streak to 15 games and leapfrog Detroit into the second seeding in the NFC playoff race. That means that while the Lions will host the first playoff game at Ford Field, which opened in 2002, they’ll likely be hitting the road after that.
Referee Brad Allen’s officiating crew missed a call on the previous drive by Dallas that may have prevented the wacky ending altogether. See, a tripping penalty on Cowboys tight end Peyton Hendershot turned a second-and-3 into a first-and-25 at the Detroit 44. The tripping penalty should’ve been called against Lions defensive end Aidan Hutchinson instead of Hendershot.
After initially ruling that the Lions had taken a 21-20 lead with 23 seconds left on Jared Goff’s 2-point conversion toss to left tackle Taylor Decker, the officials