After Further Review: Jets/Giants Officiating

This season, we're 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

Giants 6-62 (leading to three Jets first downs)
Jets 7-54 (leading to three Giants first downs)

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

  • Steve McLendon clearly lined up with his hands in the neutral zone.
  • Defensive holding on Nate Hairston to negate a sack. Clear call and so unnecessary because there was no chance a throw was coming.
  • Holding on Frankie Luvu on a kickoff. This happened off-screen.
  • Alex Lewis holding to negate a 30-yard completion from Sam Darnold to Chris Herndon. Lewis was trying to block two guys here and reached across one of them to draw an obvious call.
  • Offensive pass interference on two-point conversion attempt to Golden Tate. Clear push-off here on the rookie Blessuan Austin, who slipped to the ground as a result of the contact.
  • Illegal formation on the Giants. Only six players on the line of scrimmage.
  • Pass interference on DeAndre Baker on deep throw to Robby Anderson. Clear contact before the ball arrived and the rookie never got his head turned around so that's going to be called 10 out of 10 times. This set up the winning touchdown.
  • Spencer Pulley false start. Double-clutched the snap.
  • Deliberate delay of game on the Jets before a punt.

Penalties warranting further discussion or explanation

  • Markus Golden lined up in the neutral zone on 3rd-and-1. The only notable thing here was that the ball was right at the seven yard line and the half-the-distance-to-the-goalline penalty only put the ball on the four. They screwed us out of half of a yard! Also, it was the only penalty in the first quarter.
  • Pass interference on Hairston. Despite Hairston's incredulous reaction, this seemed a reasonable call as he got a bit handsy with the receiver at the top of his route. However, the Giants snapped the ball late and it probably should have been a delay of game.
  • Neutral zone infraction on McLendon. Two plays after he was correctly called for lining up in the neutral zone, this was a bizarre call. After initially calling this a false start on the right guard, the officials changed their mind but replays showed that the guard moved first. This made it 1st-and-goal instead of 2nd-and-8 and the Giants scored on the next play.
  • Baker defensive holding on Anderson. Obvious call, with the hold seemingly continuing as the pass was released so perhaps pass interference could have been called instead.

Notable no-calls

With only 13 penalties called, you might think there would be a lot missed, but there didn't seem to be too many egregious errors.

Quinnen Williams was arguably lucky not to draw a roughing the passer penalty for contacting Daniel Jones' helmet, Jordan Jenkins easily could have drawn a delay of game penalty when he kicked a loose ball up in the air after a play and Nathan Shepherd arguably got away with a face mask penalty, although the Jets were penalized anyway on the play.

As for the Giants, could one of their touchdowns have been overturned due to a hold on Brandon Copeland?

You be the judge:

via GIPHY

The two replays were both unlikely to go the Jets' way. On the short yardage spot, Bell does have a knack of staying alive in a pile-up and he did that here but you couldn't see the ball and it was blown dead before he made clear progress to the marker.

As for the potential fumble by Jones, the ball did slip out of his hand, but the important thing here is that his arm was coming forward. If they determined that he was trying to pull the ball back and not throw it, then that would have been an incomplete pass anyway based on the tuck rule. However, that rule was repealed in 2013 so that's a fumble under today's rules. It was always unlikely the booth would conclude that though - they just assumed it just came out of his hand funny as he tried to change his arm angle or whatever.