The NFL is hearing a chorus of disapproval about the way it’s officiating football games, including from a Super Bowl champion and Hall of Famer.
Tony Dungy, former Colts coach and member of NBC’s Football Night in America, took the league to task on social media for allowing a blatant fumble by Eagles QB Jaden Hurts on a Tush Push play to stand, after an in-game video replay ruled the play unreviewable due to Hurts’ forward progress being stopped.
According to league rules, the play is not eligible for review.
To Dungy, that reasoning did not fly.
“The NFL must get rid of these categories that are ‘non-reviewable’! You can’t have New York jumping and change plays, saying ‘expedited review told us….’-and then have obvious misses that go unchanged. That’s what the review process was put in for. We had a couple in our GB-Pitt game, and it’s terrible. When you change some obvious plays and not others, you create a credibility issue, and that’s what we have now.”
Dungy didn’t stop there; he also highlighted plays from the Packers-Steelers contest that he felt should have been overturned.
The Tush Push has remained a nightmare for the league (except for the Eagles) and its officials. Cameras have caught Philadelphia offensive linemen false-starting on almost every Tush Push play, and, despite the league’s promise a few weeks ago to officiate the play more closely, none of those penalties have been called.
The Hurts fumble on Sunday was especially egregious, given the fact that it happened outside the pile and was clearly visible to all. The league tried to ban the play in the offseason. But failed to pass the measure by two votes.
