After Further Review: Jets-Packers

by Site Admin

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

Packers 14-133 (leading to four Jets first downs)

Jets 13-156 (leading to four Packers 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

  • Isaiah Williams holding penalty to negate a Breece Hall first down run. Basically bearhugged Lukas Van Ness to prevent him getting outside, and perhaps didn't need to because slowing him down would have been enough for Hall to get outside.
  • Qwan'tez Stiggers illegal block in the back. Williams misjudged a bouncing punt but when he picked it up and turned upfield, he probably would have avoided the gunner without Stiggers shoving him in the back. That cost the Jets 16 yards of field position.
  • Braiden McGregor holding on a punt that was a touchback anyway. His rush was blocked by the long snapper, who McGregor unnecessarily dragged to the ground to prevent him from covering the kick.
  • Brandon Stephens pass interference. Panicked slightly after Matthew Golden got a step on a double move, so he grabbed the shoulder pad and definitely pulled back on it to impede his downfield progress. Notably, this was the Jets' first defensive penalty with 11 minutes left in the third quarter.
  • Joe Tippmann false start. Geno Smith was rushing to get the ball snapped with the clock winding down and Tippmann (and others) moved before Josh Myers snapped it, so it perhaps was destined to be a delay of game anyway.
  • Myers ineligible man downfield on an RPO. Smith faked the handoff to Breece Hall but then hesitated before throwing the ball incomplete and this hesitation led to the linemen being too far upfield. He had Adonai Mitchell open near the marker but there was a defender in the passing lane. Once you don't make an immediate throw on an RPO, you basically have to keep it and scramble for whatever yardage you can get because a lineman downfield penalty is inevitable.
  • Deliberate delay of game after failing to draw the Packers offside on 4th-and-1.
  • Jamien Sherwood unnecessary roughness on Jordan Love's negated touchdown run. This riled up the Packers players and understandably so because it was a helmet to helmet hit. That's not necessarily a penalty because Love was a runner and not a defenseless player. However, it was a late hit because he was already in the end zone.
  • Isaiah Davis holding on a kickoff return. Got beaten upfield and definitely grabbed the arm or shoulder of his man as he tried to recover.
  • Williams false start on 3rd-and-25 in overtime. Moved too early.
  • Jarvis Brownlee unnecessary roughness. This basically ended the Jets' hopes as he threw the runner to the ground well beyond the sideline following a first down catch in overtime. The penalty moved the ball from where it would have been a 54-yard field goal to where it would be 39 yards.

Packers Penalties

  • Karl Brooks neutral zone infraction. Jumped before the snap. Claimed to be reacting to movement from either Armand Membou or Breece Hall but there didn't seem to be one.
  • Defensive offside on Anthony Campbell that was declined anyway on a successful third down conversion. Campbell lined up with his hands clearly in the neutral zone.
  • Holding on Kamal Hadden on a punt return. Grabbed Stiggers to prevent him from making a tackle against a double team.
  • Offensive holding on Christian Watson, as Azareye'h Thomas run blitzed inside and Watson essentially tackled him.
  • Jordan Morgan illegal formation. Clearly a step too far back from the line of scrimmage.
  • Jacob Monk offensive holding. McGregor beat him upfield and Monk tackled him to prevent the tackle for loss.
  • Keisean Nixon defensive pass interference on deep throw to Mitchell. Nixon got his head turned late and his timing was off as he draped his hands over Mitchell in an attempt to disrupt the pass. While he tried to avoid grabbing, it was clear that the arm across his inside shoulder impeded his opportunity to make the catch on a well-thrown ball.
  • Dani Dennis-Sutton unnecessary roughness on a punt. This wasn't shown on the broadcast but Dennis-Sutton was up the field near Austin McNamara after the ball was punted.
  • Offensive holding on Tucker Kraft. McGregor again, got upfield well to force a run out wide, and Kraft held on for a beat too long as he lost leverage.
  • Morgan false start. Seemed skittish at the line, almost as if a bee flew into his helmet or something. After moving his head around a couple of times and getting away with adjusting the position of his feet which in itself could easily have been a false start, he then dropped into his stance before the ball was snapped, then tried to blame his teammates.
  • Chris McClellan unnecessary roughness. Jawing at the end of a special teams play, he might have earned a penalty anyway for slamming his face mask into Malachi Moore's. However, he then made it certain with a big shove, from which Moore flopped admirably.
  • Anthony Belton offensive holding on David Bailey. Will McDonald blew by Morgan cleanly on the outside and Belton clearly grabbed and pulled on his inside arm to prevent the sack. That wasn't called though...but as Love vacated the pocket Bailey tried to spin off Belton's block and Belton grabbed him from behind. A classic example of the quarterback's escape changing the leverage to disadvantage his own blocker.
  • Illegal formation. This wasn't attributed to any player but undrafted rookie J. Michael Sturdivant was not on the line of scrimmage, leaving Green Bay one short of the required seven.
  • Nixon pass interference on Wilson. It looked like there was a slight grab at the top of the route but this was a little soft. The pass was completed anyway, so it didn't matter.

Penalties warranting further discussion or explanation

Jets Penalties

  • Williams invalid fair catch signal. This like a "these are the droids, you're looking for" wave rather than waving above his head as is required. Stiggers recovered the muff but couldn't return it because once there's a fair catch signal, legal or otherwise, it's a dead ball once muffed and recovered.
  • Bailey illegal hands to the face to negate a 3rd-and-19 stop. Initially this was incorrectly announced as being on Kingsley Enagbare. Bailey knocked Belton's helmet off, and although he seemed to be making contact mostly with the neck rather than the face, facemask or chin-strap, forcible contact to the neck is literally cited within this rule so the call was correct.
  • Smith taunting penalty after his touchdown pass to Garrett Wilson. It was never shown on the broadcast what he did, but he was knocked down by a semi-late hit by Lukas Van Ness as he made the throw so it's easy to guess. Notably, this was the Jets' first offensive penalty of the game with less than three minutes left in the third quarter.
  • Thomas 38-yard pass interference penalty on Golden. Got beaten deep by a step but recovered well and got his head turned. At the catch-point he was careful not to initiate contact but got unlucky with the location of the throw being underthrown and to the outside so he was in Golden's way in terms of making a play on the ball, and the inevitable contact would always be viewed as impeding his ability to make a play on the ball. Had the ball been perfectly thrown, it might have been perfect coverage, but the obvious issue was that he wasn't able to locate and track it until the last moment.

Packers Penalties

  • Javon Bullard taunting penalty after breaking up a third down pass. It wasn't clear what was said but it didn't look any more demonstrative than a bunch of plays that Jets and Titans players were getting away with last week.
  • Van Ness roughing the passer. There didn't seem to be much in this, and it wouldn't have been a major controversy if not called, but he did wrap Smith up after the ball had been thrown, and pulled him to the ground, landing on top of him. Could he have avoided this even though he was already on his way to the ground in the wet conditions? Probably - and what hurt him was that he made no effort to.
  • Belton offensive holding to negate a Jordan Love touchdown. Belton was beaten clean by a nice Bailey spin move but there didn't appear to be an obvious hold by him. Suspicion here is that Jager Burton actually was called for the hold as he dragged Harrison Phillips down when Love stepped up, and they announced the wrong number. This was the play where Sherwood also had his penalty.
  • Packers delay of game. The Jets probably should have just called timeout and forced the Packers to make a decision on 4th-and-5 with a minute remaining, but of course if the Packers then go for it and convert, they win in regulation and the decision is second-guessed. Ultimately, the Jets let the clock keep running and the Packers let the clock run out, took a 10-second runoff and then ran the clock down again once the clock was restarted after the penalty. As we saw last week, the clock is restarted on the official's indication of ready for play after a late half stoppage due to a penalty. This allowed Green Bay to attempt a Hail Mary pass and denied the Jets a chance to try a late scoring drive, but in terms of the officiating aspect of it all, this was handled correctly.

Notable no-calls etc

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

  • On the play where Jayden Reed was injured, he lost possession of the ball but was correctly ruled down by contact.
  • Brownlee could have had a pass interference penalty on a downfield throw in the second half, but although he reached across the receiver with his hand this was more to disrupt the catch-point than to prevent the receiver from moving towards the ball as there was no grab and he didn't slow him down. The ball was overthrown here, which helps Brownlee, in contrast to the underthrow hurting Thomas.
  • On the first play of the Packers' overtime drive (an 11-yard run) Enagbare was held around the neck/shoulder area.
  • The Jets challenged one of the Packers' fumbles that was originally ruled down by contact. Clearly it was a fumble but they were unable to reverse it to the Jets' possession because even though they came out of the pile with the ball, there was no clear angle of them recovering it.
  • The officials did a good job of not calling a penalty on Dane Belton's big hit over the middle late in the game. This was a defenseless receiver, but he made contact below the chest area with his shoulder first.
  • Smith played fast and loose with the play clock all day and arguably could have had two or three more delay of game penalties, even accounting for the fact you get an extra second after the stadium clock hits zero.

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