After Further Review: Jets-Raiders Officiating

by Site Admin

This season, we're 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

Raiders 4-35 (leading to one Jets first down)

Jets 4-37 (leading to zero Raiders first downs)

Plays where the call was obvious, uncontroversial or not visible on broadcast footage

  • Unnecessary roughness on Raiders punter AJ Cole for hitting Braxton Berrios out of bounds. No question about this one.
  • Alex Lewis offensive holding to negate Ty Montgomery's 20-yard catch to the three-yard line. Blatant call here as he hauled his man down in pass protection.
  • Rodney Hudson offensive holding on Nathan Shepherd. Good penetration from Shepherd and Hudson drags him down with a fistful of jersey around the shoulder pad area.
  • Robby Anderson unsportsmanlike penalty for removing his helmet and/or berating the official after a garbage time no-call on third down. Seemed fair - and hopefully Anderson wouldn't do the same thing if it was a close game.
  • Jets deliberate delay of game from punt formation.

Penalties warranting further discussion or explanation

  • Daniel Brown offensive pass interference call to negate Demaryius Thomas' touchdown. This call wasn't made on the field, but instead was picked up by the replay process. Brown ran a crossing route and Compton moved towards him and actively put his hands on him as if he was "collisioning" him before retreating back into his zone. That's a common assignment and if Compton didn't step into him, there wouldn't have been any contact. This did not seem like a good call, particularly since replay reversals have been rare and other teams seem to get away with these rub-routes all the time. In fact, if this had been called on the field, you could even make a case for it being reversed.
  • False start on Richie Incognito. The Jets saw something here because they appealed for a flag. However, it didn't seem like Incognito moved. The only other thing it could be for was the center doing a head-bob prior to the snap.
  • Roughing the passer on Maurice Hurst. Most people seem to agree the Jets got lucky with this call which set up their first touchdown. Hurst was perhaps called for hitting Darnold late or landing with his body weight on him, but this was extremely harsh as he seemed to land half on his teammate and rolled away from any kind of heavy contact. Maxx Crosby did make brief contact around the head area as he was making the tackle, so maybe that's what the official saw and just got the number wrong, but either way this was incredibly harsh and a gift for the Jets.

Notable no-calls

A season-low eight combined penalties always was going to bode well for the Jets. Obviously they are better when not being penalized, but surprisingly the Raiders have a far better win-loss record over the past few years in games where they commit at least 10 penalties.

While there were no doubt some penalties that could have been called, few were significant with the game not being close for much of the second half.

Anderson obviously felt he was interfered with on the play he was arguing, Neville Hewitt got away with some downfield contact on one incompletion and Vyncint Smith probably should have been flagged for an illegal block in the back on Braxton Berrios' good return.

The replay booth had two easy calls to make as Bilal Powell clearly let the ball hit the turf and the runner was obviously short of the marker on the 4th down stop. Despite what the announcers were speculating, he seemed clearly short on the 3rd down play too.

One other potentially controversial moment saw the Jets strip the ball loose from Derek Carr before he hit the turf but no challenge was made. It seemed clear that the officials had already ruled Carr's forward progress had been stopped so that wasn't going to be something the Jets could challenge.