NFL reviewed a non-reviewable ruling on Josh Allen incompletion
 

Just before halftime of Sunday’s AFC Championship Game, Bills quarterback Josh Allen took the snap, rolled to his right, and threw the ball away an instant before stepping out of bounds at the 9-yard line. The officials mistakenly ruled him out of bounds. And then the NFL officiating department made a much bigger mistake.

The replay assistant buzzed down to the on-field referee, who then consulted with NFL head of officiating Al Riveron. They looked at the review and found that Allen had thrown the ball away before he stepped out of bounds. So they changed the call to an incomplete pass.

Big problem: That’s not a reviewable play. When a player in possession of the ball is ruled out of bounds, that’s the end of the play. Nothing that happens after that can be reviewed, even if there’s clear and obvious video evidence that the player didn’t actually step out of bounds.

This particular call didn’t really matter — the Bills ended up kicking a field goal, and it’s highly likely they also would have kicked a field goal if the ruling hadn’t been overturned — but it’s alarming that Riveron didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to review the play.

The NFL often takes criticism for its byzantine rules. When the NFL’s own head of officiating can’t keep track of the rules, it’s hard not to feel that criticism is justified.

Item 3. Passer Out of Bounds Before Throwing Pass. A ruling that a player stepped out of bounds before throwing a pass is not reviewable to determine if he was inbounds when he threw the pass.

https://operations.nfl.com/the-rules...boundary-lines

The refs were ****ing awful.

They did everything they could to keep the Bills in it.

Not sure why that wouldn't be reviewable. I see the rule, just doesn't make sense. I'm fine with the overturn, rather have the right call.

I wonder if there's a concern that a guy would get ruled out of bounds and then come back in and run for a bunch of yards and challenge it? Could that happen?

Oh, wait. If it's specifically about passing, maybe the concern is that defenders have to let up when the QB is going out of bounds, so the QB could use that to his advantage.

It's such a specific rule that there's a specific scenario it's meant to guard against. But what's the scenario?

Yeah, I don't see anything wrong with reviewing that.

What's the rulebook say about sacking a QB and forcing a fumble only to have it called forward progress stopped?

It's pretty obvious why this isn't reviewable. It was discussed in the game thread.

If he is ruled out of bounds, that means the whistle was blown. If the whistle was blown, you then cannot award a completion on a play because the defense may have stopped.

in the situation with the Chiefs game, I think it makes sense to allow the review because all it did was negate a sack, the past was incomplete. However, the NFL has clearlystated that this situation is not revealable

It's the same explanation for not being able to review a play and decide that a player did not go out of bounds. If the whistle is blown, the defense stops, so you cannot award additional yards.

The exception is that a player can be awarded an extra step or two towards a touchdown or a first down marker if he is erroneously ruled to have stepped out of bounds.

If I'm reading that correctly, i think the play is dead via whistle when the player is out of bounds, and touching out of bounds is reviewable on running and passing plays.

Could be ruled an automatic incompletion, at least they don't lose the yards of the sack that way.

That's not entirely true. You can recover a fumble even after the whistle. That happened to us in Phoenix a few years back. Kelce thought he had a catch and we were in hurry up so he got up and ran back to the huddle and the defender recovered the ball. It was ruled a complete pass but Arians challenged the catch and the Ref ultimately ruled a fumble with clear recovery by Phoenix even though it was after the whistle.

My argument sitting at the bar was that he would have damn sure been OOB if a linebacker would have lit him up before his foot came down.

That's an outstanding point.

he still got pushed

That rule is specifically written that way, I don't think there is anyone for throwing after the whistle and continuance.

When you are across the sideline, and throw a pass that goes further out of bounds, isn't that the very definition of intentional grounding? Who cares if the ball crosses the LOS to make it a legal pass.