When the NFL says refs shouldn't have penalized someone...

[ReMeDy]

In particular, I'm referring to the Chiefs Husain Abdullah wrongly penalized for getting down on his knees based on his Islamic faith.
http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000403323/article/nfl-husain-abdullah-should-not-have-been-penalized

Why was this penalty not reversed on the field if the NFL says it should have been? The NFL this season has a crew at the officiating office who watches the games and calls in to the officiating crew to improve accuracy. I know they do this on challenges, but why can't they also extend this to penalties?

 

If a referee makes the wrong call, the officiating crew at the office calls in and says, "Hold up! You sir, are wrong! Reverse that call and apologize!" Then the ref gets in front of millions of fans and says, "I'm sorry, I screwed up. I have been informed I made an error. There is no penalty."

[ruksak]

In particular, I'm referring to the Chiefs Husain Abdullah wrongly penalized for getting down on his knees based on his Islamic faith.

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000403323/article/nfl-husain-abdullah-should-not-have-been-penalized

Why was this penalty not reversed on the field if the NFL says it should have been? The NFL this season has a crew at the officiating office who watches the games and calls in to the officiating crew to improve accuracy. I know they do this on challenges, but why can't they also extend this to penalties?

 

If a referee makes the wrong call, the officiating crew at the office calls in and says, "Hold up! You sir, are wrong! Reverse that call and apologize!" Then the ref gets in front of millions of fans and says, "I'm sorry, I screwed up. I have been informed I made an error. There is no penalty."

First, I'd like to call attention to how silly it is for you to assert that refs should apologize in front of everyone like an ashamed school boy. The very suggestion is hilarious, but you weren't trying to be funny. So that's a bit melodramatic on your part, Remedy. 

 

Second, I think there should be some kind of manner that the "NFL command & control center" could interject themselves and have the ref re-access. Or just flat out inform them they made a mistake. This could be framed differently than the current review process, which is (in spirit) supposed to primarily revolve around painstakingly slow-mo reviewing plays to suss out detail that the human eye cannot properly gauge at full speed. 

 

I see a difference between the need for slo-mo reviews and just flat out correcting obvious mistakes, such as the prayer issue from last night. 

 

It is getting a little old seeing TV announcers immediately calling attention to an error, yet there's this huge disconnect with the refs on the field, as if they're off in some far away dimension. 

 

Final note; I assumed Abdullah was called for sliding, not bowing in prayer. Perhaps this was the case but the NFL didn't want any more backlash, so they just flat out called it a mistake without mentioning the slide. The slide is, in fact, a penalty and entirely unnecessary for him to do in order to bow in prayer. I feel the NFL was right for calling him on that, they just didn't want any flack, so they apologized. 

[Nobody]

He broke the rules did he not? I couldn't care less if he's Muslim, follow the rules or suffer the consequences.

[Superman]

He broke the rules did he not? I couldn't care less if he's Muslim, follow the rules or suffer the consequences.

 

Technically, yes. The NFL, however, has instructed refs not to flag players for going to the ground to pray, throw up the cross, whatever. So, the argument is that, since he was praying, the flag shouldn't have been thrown.

[Superman]

Final note; I assumed Abdullah was called for sliding, not bowing in prayer. Perhaps this was the case but the NFL didn't want any more backlash, so they just flat out called it a mistake without mentioning the slide. The slide is, in fact, a penalty and entirely unnecessary for him to do in order to bow in prayer. I feel the NFL was right for calling him on that, they just didn't want any flack, so they apologized. 

 

From the article I posted in the other thread, Abdullah himself assumed that the flag was for the slide. He said he should have come to a stop, kneeled and done his thing, but he slid into the kneel. And he said when he came off the field, Andy Reid told him "you can't slide."

 

I'm thinking if he'd thrown up the cross, the refs wouldn't have thrown the flag, or would have picked the flag up after they realized what he was doing. I think maybe they had a brain fart and didn't realize he was doing a different kind of religious prostration, and so they flagged him.

 

I'm glad this was in a blowout, and the call wound up being irrelevant.

[ruksak]

He broke the rules did he not? I couldn't care less if he's Muslim, follow the rules or suffer the consequences.

What's notable is that the NFL (going into last night) seemed blissfully unaware that other religions may be observed during a TD celebration. 

[BloodyChamp]

How exactly do you reverse it now? Go back in time and wave the flag off?

[southwest1]

I wasn't even thinking it was a religious gesture of any kind. When I saw the flag on that play, I was like what in the world for? I associate penalties with holding, chop blocking, pass interference, roughing the passer, offsides, or defensive encroachment.

 

I said to myself why? He didn't do a taunting decapitation gesture. So falling to your knees is excessive celebration now? So does that mean a person is a heretic or just an Elvis Presley "Jailhouse Rock" fan? LOL! 

 

Either I'm getting old & senile or the world around me continues to waste my time getting dumb & dumber each passing day. Sigh...

 

This sliding infraction confuses me because QBs get to scramble & slide all the time running with the ball. Yeah, it's a butt thing vs a knee thing, but dropping to one's knees & sliding is splitting hairs to me. 1 is legal & 1 is illegal. Whatever...

 

Last, but not least, I associate excessive celebrations with using the football as a prop like a pillow or golf ball hole in one not what I saw last last night. How can your own body part detract from the integrity of the game? SMH. 

[shakedownstreet]

How exactly do you reverse it now? Go back in time and wave the flag off?

 

yes. that is exactly what they are going to do. or maybe they already did, who knows!

[TKnight24]

Really didn't matter. got smacked regardless of the penalty

Same outcome would've happened regardless

[BloodyChamp]

If that happens, can we all FINALLY agree that the refs cater to Brady lol

[ReMeDy]

How exactly do you reverse it now? Go back in time and wave the flag off?

 

I'm referring to at the moment the mistake occurs, immediately reverse the penalty before the next play is called. You have announcers all the time saying, "That's a dumb penalty" before play resumes, so you know the officiating crew at the office should have plenty of time to realize it's dumb too, contact the ref on the field, and get it reversed. Since it's a penalty, hurry up offenses can't rush to the line to get the next play off anyways.

 

 

Really didn't matter.

 

But under different circumstances, what if it had?

[southwest1]

From the article I posted in the other thread, Abdullah himself assumed that the flag was for the slide. He said he should have come to a stop, kneeled and done his thing, but he slid into the kneel. And he said when he came off the field, Andy Reid told him "you can't slide."

 

I'm thinking if he'd thrown up the cross, the refs wouldn't have thrown the flag, or would have picked the flag up after they realized what he was doing. I think maybe they had a brain fart and didn't realize he was doing a different kind of religious prostration, and so they flagged him.

 

I'm glad this was in a blowout, and the call wound up being irrelevant.

Could you imagine if the game had been decided by a single TD? It's the Seahawks/Packers game fiasco all over again only this time the Commissioner would have a huge religious intolerance episode on his public relations nightmare plate. Yes, I know speculation over something that never happened is counter productive, but it still crossed my mind nevertheless. 

[BloodyChamp]

I'm referring to at the moment the mistake occurs, immediately reverse the penalty before the next play is called. You have announcers all the time saying, "That's a dumb penalty" before play resumes, so you know the officiating crew at the office should have plenty of time to realize it's dumb too, contact the ref on the field, and get it reversed. Since it's a penalty, hurry up offenses can't rush to the line to get the next play off anyways.

But under different circumstances, what if it had?

That rule is already in place. Calls happen all the time which are followed by the ref saying "there is no infraction for such and such on the play" followed by a the specific explanation pertaining to the play. They just blew that one.

[southwest1]

Does this mean that NFL zebras will now have to ask a WR, TE, DB, or QB who haphazardly stumbles to their knees with a TD excuse me sir, was that a religious observance or were you just acting self centered & narcissistic? Just kidding! 

 

Will players be required to jot down before the start of the season their preferred religion of choice so that when a questionable excessive celebration call arises in a game zebras can check an NFL database with their original response? The reason being to prevent a guy from lying to avoid a penalty during a must have playoff game.

 

Think of it like a person who lies about their birthday to get a free meal in a restaurant. Sort of like a religious confirmation verification ID. I'm just being sarcastic here. 

[thedude]

Why was this penalty not reversed on the field if the NFL says it should have been?

Every week, the NFL front office lets a team know when the refs made a bad call. Should all of those flags been picked up and the penalty reversed before play resumed?

[Blue Horseshoe]

Why not just hand the football to the nearest official, go back to the bench, and do the prayers there?

[Synthetic]

Why not just hand the football to the nearest official, go back to the bench, and do the prayers there?

 

 

Why did people enjoy this so much 3 years ago?

 

 

 

 

Both Abdullah and Ried thought the penalty was because he slid down in the endzone (excessive celebration - happened in the Steelers/Packers Super Bowl)

 

 

The league should not have said it was for the kneeling and bowing action. The NFL started this mess by saying he shouldn't have been flagged, but accordingly, you can get a flag for excessive celebration which could be from "going to the ground" in a celebration (again, happened in a SB).

 

 

This is a big deal over nothing.

[Valpo2004]

Technically, yes. The NFL, however, has instructed refs not to flag players for going to the ground to pray, throw up the cross, whatever. So, the argument is that, since he was praying, the flag shouldn't have been thrown.

 

I don't think it is technically.  I believe the rules make clear exceptions for religious reasons.

 

Perhaps the officials where unaware that it was for religious reasons??

 

First of all I don't see the point of having an unsportsmanlike penalty for going to the ground in the first place.  Soccer players go to the ground all of the time to celebrate a goal and those celebrations certainly arn't typically for religious reasons.  Honestly scoring a TD and sliding on your knee's, even if you arn't intending on praying is way more classy then some of the silly TD dances I've seen.

 

Why is dancing acceptable but sliding on your knees unsportsmanlike?  That makes no sense to me.   

 

But if we have to have that and are making exceptions for religious reasons (which is a good thing) then perhaps teams before the game could make a note that the following players may go to the ground for religious reasons and make a note of what sort of actions they do as a part of their religious rites.

 

But again I really don't see the point in having a rule against going to the ground.

[Thewholefnshow28]

Lets slow the game down even longer having every penalty reviewed by the NFL itself.  It is annoying as a fan to have every scoring play reviewed when most are obviously touchdowns. Can you imagine if we had to take a few minutes on every single holding call or pass interference.  Sometimes we have to just accept that there will be human error.  These guys are not robots and even if we had someone at the NFL HQ reviewing I am sure there would be a mess up from time to time as we are all human.

 

The refs flagged him because he slid on his knees not because of the actual prayer.  Based on the rule the refs had to call that play.  The NFL is just changing their mind because people are not seeing the slide, but instead assume he was being flagged for the prayer.  If the guy stopped and then did the prayer and got flagged then yeah the NFL should be ripped a new one for allowing Christian prayer to be used, but not allowing an Islamic prayer, but in this case he went to the ground sliding on his knees.

[jvan1973]

I'm referring to at the moment the mistake occurs, immediately reverse the penalty before the next play is called. You have announcers all the time saying, "That's a dumb penalty" before play resumes, so you know the officiating crew at the office should have plenty of time to realize it's dumb too, contact the ref on the field, and get it reversed. Since it's a penalty, hurry up offenses can't rush to the line to get the next play off anyways.

But under different circumstances, what if it had?

almost all kickoffs go out of the back of the endzone anyway. Tacking 15 yards onto a kickoff is about the most meaningless penalty in all of sorted

[Superman]

I don't think it is technically.  I believe the rules make clear exceptions for religious reasons.

 

Perhaps the officials where unaware that it was for religious reasons??

 

First of all I don't see the point of having an unsportsmanlike penalty for going to the ground in the first place.  Soccer players go to the ground all of the time to celebrate a goal and those celebrations certainly arn't typically for religious reasons.  Honestly scoring a TD and sliding on your knee's, even if you arn't intending on praying is way more classy then some of the silly TD dances I've seen.

 

Why is dancing acceptable but sliding on your knees unsportsmanlike?  That makes no sense to me.   

 

But if we have to have that and are making exceptions for religious reasons (which is a good thing) then perhaps teams before the game could make a note that the following players may go to the ground for religious reasons and make a note of what sort of actions they do as a part of their religious rites.

 

But again I really don't see the point in having a rule against going to the ground.

 

 

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/11616422/nfl-says-husain-abdullah-kansas-city-chiefs-penalized-praying-celebration

 

According to that, the NFL has instructed refs not to flag players who are praying in celebration. The statement from the league official makes me think that it's an informal exception, but I haven't checked the rule book to confirm. 

 

Also, we were talking about this in another thread. The NFL banned going to the ground to get rid of inappropriate gestures and dancing. I think it's silly, but that's the reason behind it. Sliding on your knees shouldn't be against the rules when celebrating a TD. 

[Valpo2004]

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/11616422/nfl-says-husain-abdullah-kansas-city-chiefs-penalized-praying-celebration

 

According to that, the NFL has instructed refs not to flag players who are praying in celebration. The statement from the league official makes me think that it's an informal exception, but I haven't checked the rule book to confirm. 

 

Also, we were talking about this in another thread. The NFL banned going to the ground to get rid of inappropriate gestures and dancing. I think it's silly, but that's the reason behind it. Sliding on your knees shouldn't be against the rules when celebrating a TD. 

 

It is silly.  You can't dance on your knees that I'm aware of.  And inappropriate gestures can be done standing too.

 

Honestly I think sliding on your knees is way more classy then some of the touchdown dances we see.  

[Superman]

It is silly.  You can't dance on your knees that I'm aware of.  And inappropriate gestures can be done standing too.

 

Honestly I think sliding on your knees is way more classy then some of the touchdown dances we see.  

 

Yeah, I agree.

 

But, uhh, you absolutely can dance on your knees. Well, it depends on your definition of the word "dance," but yeah. The humping, gyrating, sexualized stuff in general, is what they were trying to get rid of when they made this rule, probably 15 years ago.

[OffensivelyPC]

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/11616422/nfl-says-husain-abdullah-kansas-city-chiefs-penalized-praying-celebration

 

According to that, the NFL has instructed refs not to flag players who are praying in celebration. The statement from the league official makes me think that it's an informal exception, but I haven't checked the rule book to confirm.

 

Also, we were talking about this in another thread. The NFL banned going to the ground to get rid of inappropriate gestures and dancing. I think it's silly, but that's the reason behind it. Sliding on your knees shouldn't be against the rules when celebrating a TD. 

It's an informal exception - at least it is not listed as an exception.  Rule 2, Section 3, Article I, subsection (d).  Exceptions are just below it, which mention nothing about religious celebrations.

[BloodyChamp]

Thank a few losers from the 2000s for these rules. Seriously, we were about to see a Shawn Michaels/Canadian flag celebration from Chad Johnson or somebody before the NFL cracked down.

[oldunclemark]

Thank a few losers from the 2000s for these rules. Seriously, we were about to see a Shawn Michaels/Canadian flag celebration from Chad Johnson or somebody before the NFL cracked down.

If you can wait 20 seconds and run to your sidelines to celebrate..there's NEVER ANY penalty, right?

[ruksak]

Thank a few losers from the 2000s for these rules. Seriously, we were about to see a Shawn Michaels/Canadian flag celebration from Chad Johnson or somebody before the NFL cracked down.

That's fitting, because I always equate excessive endzone celebrations to that of Pro Wrestling. The sharpie, the cellphone, things got out of hand. To prevent players from exploiting the rules, they drew a hard line, they had too. 

 

I cannot tolerate when people claim these rules "take the fun out of the NFL". If watching your team score isn't fun enough, football may not be for you. 

[thedude]

Technically, yes. The NFL, however, has instructed refs not to flag players for going to the ground to pray, throw up the cross, whatever. So, the argument is that, since he was praying, the flag shouldn't have been thrown.

I think the problem in this case was that he slid through the end zone on his knees well before he turned it into a kneeling prayer. The decision to throw the flag was made before he did his prayer portion of the event.

So, now can they celebrate any way they want as long as the celebration culminates in a prayer of some kind? Can a player hide a cell phone in the pad of the goal post an phone in the prayer?

[Superman]

I think the problem in this case was that he slid through the end zone on his knees well before he turned it into a kneeling prayer. The decision to throw the flag was made before he did his prayer portion of the event.

 

That's what he said his impression was. And that's what Andy Reid said when he got to the sideline.

[HtownColt]

Deleted

[ruksak]

Deleted

Come at me bro, I bet you don't even lift. 

[shakedownstreet]

Deleted

 

also deleted

[ReMeDy]

Reading this new development addresses most of my topic:
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/nfl-referees-association--league-saying-calls-are-wrong-when-they-re-correct-211024522.html

"In the last two weeks, two penalties that were called in games that drew national attention were publicly announced to be in error by the League office, however the Officiating Department later graded the calls as correct. This has caused confusion for NFL officials as to what the League does and doesn’t want called... The NFLRA statement said Abdullah was called for a penalty for sliding on his knees in the end zone, not for anything having to do with his prayer."

 

There seems to be too much back-and-forth drama off-the-field to make these kinds of informed decisions during a live game, so you can throw my idea out the window. There should be one governing body that reports what is and is not a penalty, but apparently that's not the case, hence the referees confusion.

 

At the end of the article, if I read correctly, it seems all parties agree the religious Abdullah penalty should not have been called. The referee on the field saw the sliding, made up his mind it was a penalty, but then the prayer basically offset the sliding. Therefore, my advice to Antonio Brown would be if he wants to fall down again, be sure you Tebow at the end of it.
 

I feel bad for the referees in this case, as they're made to look the fools. They're just trying to follow the rules (albeit conflicting rules) their superiors gave them. This would be a great opportunity for Roger Goodell to clear this confusion up, but I'm sure he's too busy for that.

[Valpo2004]

That's fitting, because I always equate excessive endzone celebrations to that of Pro Wrestling. The sharpie, the cellphone, things got out of hand. To prevent players from exploiting the rules, they drew a hard line, they had too. 

 

I cannot tolerate when people claim these rules "take the fun out of the NFL". If watching your team score isn't fun enough, football may not be for you. 

 

That's fair, these rules are there because of the over the top celebrations that have been done in the past that where pretty much an embarrassment.  

 

A lot thanks to the group of show off receivers that played during the 90's.  Moss, TO, and Chad Johnson/Ochocinqo 

[PonyUp]

Sliding in itself is called as a penalty.

 

I think it was Austin Collie who was called on it for us a few years ago.. And in his case there was no post slide celebration. He was flagged for the slide.

 

The NFL screwed up on this one. They should have never given any credence to the flag being on the prayer cause it wasn't. He was flagged on the slide, as they do and should have done in that situation. If I'm that official, I'm mad at the NFL right now. Instead of backing up their own rule, they panicked and basically called the man a bigot.

 

Personally, I think they should just get rid of the rule - But I like to see a little personality from the guys so celebrations don't bother me.

[SubZero]

He broke the rules did he not? I couldn't care less if he's Muslim, follow the rules or suffer the consequences.

Well yeah technically but there is no doubt there are some ridiculous rules. Going to your knee for celebration, endzone high stepping, custom facemasks, the raised illegal contact penalties. I mean the list goes on.

Im not arguing that he broke a rule. But for something as ridiculous as that. While other players are involved in sexual assault and domestic violence are still playing with no repercussions is just insane. The league definitely need to get their priorites straight.