It has been 15 weeks, which can seem like a lifetime in the NFL, and San Diego Chargers coach Norv Turner has moved on.
Turner insisted on Wednesday that he had gotten over the anger of a referee’s blown call that resulted in a 39-38 loss to Denver in the second week of the season.
The Chargers have been trying to catch the Broncos ever since and Turner — his face no longer as red as Rudolph’s nose — said he was simply happy to be playing them again tomorrow night, with the American Football Conference West championship at stake.
So, really, no hard feelings?
“If you believe me when I said that, I could sell you some other things,” Turner said with a smile.
As the NFL enters the final weekend of the season, Turner is not the only one who may not be ready to forgive and forget. Three controversial calls by officials from this season loom large in the chase for the league’s 12 playoff berths.
On Sept. 14, Denver quarterback Jay Cutler fumbled near the San Diego goal line with just over a minute left in regulation and referee Ed Hochuli blew his whistle, a mistake he admitted quickly afterward. The premature stoppage allowed the Broncos to keep the ball, score a touchdown and add the winning two-point conversion. Had the result of the game been reversed, the Chargers would be going into tomorrow’s game having already clinched the division.
Nearly two months later, in the final seconds of the Cardinals’ 29-24 win over the 49ers on Nov. 10, officials looked at replays to see whether 49ers running back Frank Gore, who had been ruled down a half-yard from the goal line, had been touched before he rolled into the end zone. They moved the spot of the ball back two yards — but did not inform 49ers coaches, who had called for a dive by fullback Michael Robinson. With no time left to change the play, Robinson was stopped well short of the goal line.
Had San Francisco won that game, they would be tied with Arizona and have a chance to win the division. Instead, the Cardinals have clinched the title. Mike Martz, San Francisco’s offensive coordinator, received a US$20,000 fine from the league for criticizing the officials.
On Dec. 14, the Steelers’ winning touchdown in a 13-9 victory over the Ravens came after the call on the field — that Pittsburgh receiver Santonio Holmes did not cross the goal line with the ball — was reversed. Television replays appeared inconclusive.
If Baltimore had won, they would be hosting Jacksonville tomorrow with a chance to clinch a first-round bye. Now the Ravens are playing just to reach the playoffs and could be rewarded with a first-round trip to New England.
A request to interview Mike Pereira, the vice president for officiating, was denied by the league, but Pereira has defended the calls in the Steelers’ and Cardinals’ victories.
The reversal in the Steelers’ game was made by Walt Coleman, who had a hand in one of the NFL’s more famous reversals. In an AFC divisional playoff game after the 2001 season, Coleman cited the infamous “tuck rule” when he overturned what many thought was a fumble by Tom Brady. That call allowed the Patriots to keep the ball and eventually defeat the Oakland Raiders, beginning their run of three Super Bowl titles in four seasons.
Referees are often remembered by such defining calls, something that bothers former referee Jim Tunney.
“Come on, let it go,” Tunney said of the link between Coleman and the tuck rule call.
Tunney was the official who was standing under the right goal post at Lambeau Field in a 1965 Western Conference playoff game when a late field-goal attempt by the Packers’ Don Chandler sailed over him. Tunney called the kick good, although many thought it was wide right. The field goal tied the score with the Baltimore Colts, 10-10, and Chandler kicked the winning field goal in overtime.
“I think I got it right,” Tunney said. “But every time I’d run into Don Shula, Tom Matte and John Unitas, even years later, they’d always tell me I was wrong.”
Some of these calls have spurred changes. After Chandler’s field goal, the uprights were extended 10 feet the next season. In 1998, Jets quarterback Vinny Testaverde was credited with scoring the winning touchdown against the Seahawks on a quarterback sneak, despite replays showing he never reached the end zone. The defeat was a critical blow to the Seahawks’ playoff hopes and the call is widely credited with re-instituting instant replay the next season.
Last season, the Browns lost to the Cardinals 27-21 when tight end Kellen Winslow’s catch in the end zone on the final play was ruled incomplete because he landed out of bounds after being pushed by a defender. Officials had to determine whether he would have landed in bounds if he had not been pushed. The Browns would have reached the playoffs with that victory.
To take the burden off officials, the rule was changed this season so that a receiver must land with both feet in bounds.
NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said the league’s competition committee was expected to revisit the rule on Cutler’s fumble in the off-season, just as it did after 2006. Hochuli whistled the play dead when he thought Cutler had attempted a pass. Even though the Chargers recovered the ball and replays showed that the play should have been ruled a fumble, league rules dictate that the ball was dead at the spot Cutler lost possession — Denver’s ball.
Reconsidering the rule may not be much consolation to Hochuli. He was deluged with e-mail messages and letters in the weeks after the game and said that he had planned to answer all of them, many of which were profane. He also apologized to Turner.
“He still feels bad and it’s four months later,” said Tunney, who said he had talked to Hochuli several times this season. “It’s haunted him all season. Hochuli’s one of the best we have, but his struggle has been to focus on what he’s done and get that call out of his mind. He’s going to carry it the rest of his life.”
Asked if Hochuli’s apology meant anything to him, Chargers receiver Chris Chambers thought about it for a moment.
“Uhhhh, absolutely not,” he said with a laugh. “He apologized and I guess we accepted it, but luckily it didn’t dictate our season.”
It is coincidence rather than chastisement that Hochuli will be in Green Bay tomorrow, officiating as the Lions attempt to avoid the first 0-16 season.
Afterward, his attention may turn to the game in San Diego.
“I really believe that he’s probably happy that this is a game that’s going to mean something, that whatever happened at the beginning of the year doesn’t mean anything,” Chargers running back LaDainian Tomlinson said of Hochuli. “We can’t sit here and blame Ed for that call, because it doesn’t mean anything. We have the opportunity to make that go away and for people to forget it.”
Which is more than they can say in Baltimore and San Francisco.
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