After Further Review: Jets-Bills

By popular demand, we're again going to have a post after each game that breaks down some of the controversial decisions from the officiating crew in the game.

Penalty Count

Bills 6-69 (leading to one Jets first down)
Jets 5-35 (leading to four Bills first downs)

Note: This does not include penalties that are declined or off-set.

Plays where the call was obvious, uncontroversial or not visible on broadcast footage

Jets Penalties

Arian Smith offside. Lined up level with the ball, just after the Bills had been called for the same thing.
Joe Tippmann false start. Just after Tyrod Taylor came into the game, perhaps caused by the change in cadence. This was the only Jets penalty that didn't give the Bills a first down.
Tony Adams defensive holding. This was a very clear call. He had a handful of jersey near the chest/arm, and kept a grip on it as the receiver tried to break away from him.

Bills Penalties

Josh Allen intentional grounding. Very clearly no receiver in the area as he was outside the pocket and failed to get the ball back to the line of scrimmage.
Josh Palmer lined up offside. Was on the ball just like Smith. The weird thing was that he seemed to check with the official twice and would normally have been alerted to it.
Dorian Williams holding on Marcelino McCrary-Ball on kickoff return. McCrary-Ball gained a leverage advantage and Williams held onto him a beat too long to prevent the tackle.
Palmer holding on Sauce Gardner. Basically tackled him from behind as he was about to blow up a run in the backfield.
Keon Coleman offensive pass interference. A very obvious push-off on Deuce Carter.
Allen intentional grounding. Pretty much identical to the other one.

Penalties warranting further discussion or explanation

Jets Penalties

Carter holding on Coleman. This looked like a reasonable call and he came out of his break on third down. Ironically, as they got tangled up and both fell to the ground, this helped the Bills by opening up the middle of the field for Allen's long scramble.
Micheal Clemons roughing the passer. Everyone knows, you can't hit the quarterback up high, especially when he's just dumping it off on 3rd-and-19. It's difficult for a player like Clemons to get a chance to get to the quarterback but still be able to slow up and mitigate any illegal contact if the quarterback steps into a throw. Really, this is so unfair on the defensive player who essentially needs to see into the future to lower himself to avoid the possibility of slight helmet contact on the ricochet. Clemons knows the rules and has to be careful in those situations but if you watch the play, he actually made every effort to avoid forcible contact, literally turning his head away from the contact, hitting Allen below pad level and pulling his hands back so as not to land on the quarterback. Did one molecule of his helmet make contact with the side of Allen's helmet as Allen was moving forwards with momentum going forwards while stepping into the throw? Maybe. But, in the spirit of the rules and some of the no-calls we've seen on Jets quarterbacks over the years, Clemons arguably did enough to mitigate any flag here so this was a horrible call to go against them, but given that it was 3rd-and-19 perhaps he has to play more conservatively there. Later on, he had a chance to hit Allen again and this time he essentially flopped to the floor and dived at his waist but that could just as easily end up being a flag for hitting him low if contact comes in around knee level. You have to sympathize somewhat with Clemons here and the Jets looked like they were afraid to hit Allen for the rest of the game, missing a couple of potential sacks as a result.
Gardner defensive holding. This looked like an awful call because the receiver came out of his break with his hand up in Gardner's face mask. It should have gone the other way.
Gardner defensive holding again. This one was probably fair as he took the receiver down while they tangled up. However, the point of interest here is that Josh Allen ran the ball and Gardner committed the penalty before he realized this, so it's 10 yards onto the end of the play rather than the five yards it would have been if it was a pass.

Bills Penalties

Cole Bishop unnecessary roughness. Lifted Garrett Wilson up and slammed him to the ground near the sideline after a catch. This probably should have been on Williams, who came in late and dived into Wilson to hit him high as Bishop lifted him off the ground. Bizarrely, the gamebook initially credited this to Joe Andreessen, who wasn't even on the field.

Notable no-calls etc

Here were some of the other notable missed calls, replay situations and controversial moments:

Smith's leaping catch was obviously incomplete because only one foot came down inbounds but that had to be corrected from upstairs. This was the play where he lined up offside anyway, so that was moot.
Both Smith and Qwan'tez Stiggers felt they were held by the Bills' vices on Jets punts.
Allen wanted a penalty on Gardner as there was contact on an incomplete pass. That was within five yards and not while the ball was in the air, though, so that's legal.
Bishop also had an obvious late hit on a Justin Fields slide. That would be called 100 times out of 100 on a Jets player.
Spencer Brown and David Edwards combined to make an illegal and dirty block on Harrison Phillips. Edwards hit him low as Brown had contact with him.
Allen also wanted pass interference on Carter on a pass that Dawson Knox dropped. This looked clean.
The punter was knocked down by Braiden McGregor in the second half but he seemed to land in front of him and then the punter tripped over him rather than any kind of roughing penalty.
The Jets avoided a delay of game with a timeout.

Let us know what we missed - or misinterpreted - in the comments...