NFL Officiating & Rules Analyst 'Explains' Bewildering Penalties against Texans vs. Chiefs

On Sunday, NFL Officiating & Rules Analyst Walt Anderson went on the NFL Network and tried to explain it all away. Specifically, the roughing the passer penalty with 7:00 left in the first quarter...

...and the unnecessary roughness call on linebacker Henry Henry To'oTo'o with 1:52 left in the third quarter.

Here's what Anderson, the NFL's Senior Vice President of Officiating Training & Development, and an official from 1996-2019, had to say on the calls made by referee Clay Martin and his crew. 

"On the roughing the passer, whenever the defender comes in, and there's a couple of points, and when we end up looking at the video, I think the audience will end up seeing this," Anderson said. "But when the defenders come in, and when they end up coming in face to face, if there's contact to the head of the quarterback, that's probably gonna be called by the officials.

"And that's what you can see here. Now, it has to be forcible. And one of the things we added this year is, if there's no contact at all to the helmet, replay can assist. But on this play, there was contact. And so replay could not help the officials with picking that up. Now, you can end up having to debate about whether you felt it was forcible or not.

"And that's going to be one of those conversations for the competition committee to consider next year. But when he comes in right there face to face, officials are gonna call that. That's the rule for this year.

"And the other thing that a lot of your audience might not realize is, in most all of the rule book, when in question, officials are not supposed to call a foul. But there's one place in the rule book where it states by rule, that when in doubt, officials are to call roughing the passer, and it's in the roughing the passer rule."

Which is true. Officials are told to err on the side of roughing the passer if it's in question, which they're not told to do with other penalties. And as ridiculous as those splits on what's reviewable may seem, that's the way it is... at least for now. So, if you're wondering why New York didn't get involved, you have your answer. 

"Whether it seems like it or not, officials have to call based on what they see," Anderson said of the unnecessary roughness penalty. "Now, when a player goes to the ground, he doesn't even have to be touched.

"He's down. And what happens here is when you can see, and yes, the two players end up colliding, but right here, this is the shot. When number 39 comes in and his hairline of his helmet strikes the helmet of the runner who is already on the ground, that's a foul.

"And even if replay assist could help in that, when there's contact like that, that's not gonna be changed by replay assist, even if the committee decides to add that for next year."

So, you have two questionable helmet hits that, because they're allegedly helmet hits, can't be reviewed by Mission Control. As bad as this all made Martin and his crew look, legislating roughing the passer and unnecessary roughness calls to that degree seems completely ridiculous. 

"This is one of those areas that is always gonna be debated in terms of what's forcible, what's not," Anderson concluded. "You wanna end up having guidelines. And I'm encouraged that the committee, every year, adds some things for us to help with replay assist.

"But the game is not ever gonna be perfect. And one thing we don't wanna do is we don't wanna let perfect be the enemy of good. We always wanna work and continue to try to, can we make the game better? Can we use replay assist to help pick up things that are clearly and obviously not a foul, but in those areas that are gray and may be debatable, we have to leave those on the field."

Yes, but when the implementation of the rules, and the legislation of the rules themselves, are neither perfect nor good, what are we doing here?