Ron Rivera of the Commanders comments on the refereeing in the Giants defeat Don’t ask me about the refereeing.

By Maggie On Dec 19, 2022

Ron Rivera of the Commanders comments on the refereeing in the Giants defeat Don’t ask me about the refereeing. The New York Giants defeated the Washington Commanders on Sunday night, 20-12. Towards the end of the fourth quarter, they had a chance to tie the game, but several plays stopped that.

Let’s look at it.

First, Washington lined up in a whole house backfield with Terry McLaurin split out to the right side and Curtis Samuel to the left on third-and-goal from New York’s 1-yard line. Samuel made a left-to-right motion, Washington snapped the ball, and Taylor Heinicke gave it to Brian Robinson, who strolled into the end zone. However, there was a problem; the side judge ruled that the Commanders were in an illegal formation because McLaurin was not positioned on the line of scrimmage.

The referee did not indicate that McLaurin needed to move up to get aligned, even though McLaurin seemed to check with him directly before the play. (This is a standard procedure for almost every snap. The referee will almost always indicate yes or no or whether the receivers need to move forward or backward when the receivers point to them and ask if they are correctly aligned.

The Commanders were now at the 6-yard line instead of the 1-yard line. Heinicke’s pass was incomplete on third down, and on fourth down, he chose to aim for Samuel in the end zone. Darnay Holmes, a defensive back for the Giants, reached in and intercepted the pass.

After the game, Terry McAulay, NBC’s rules analyst and a former referee, said that Holmes had unquestionably interfered with Samuel’s pass and that McLaurin should not have been penalized for lining up outside the line of scrimmage. Ron Rivera, the commanders’ coach, was dissatisfied with what transpired.

When questioned about the penalty against McLaurin and the absence of pass interference against Holmes, Rivera responded, “Don’t ask me about the referring because I can’t answer the question. Undoubtedly, numerous calls are made during an NFL game, and no single call (or missed call) determines whether a team wins or loses. However, there did seem to be some particularly egregious mistakes near the end of this game, which is regrettably nothing new for the NFL.