The Raiders got a big win on Monday night, but the officiating crew was responsible for a blunder that put three points on the board for the Broncos.
With the Raiders up 14-0 in the third quarter, Benson Mayowa sacked Joe Flacco and upon review, the play clearly ended in a Flacco fumble. It was close, but slow motion showed an obvious fumble.
The camera offers a perfect angle of the ball sliding out of Flacco’s hand before his elbow hits the ground. Gruden challenged the call and the ruling on the field (down by contact) was not overturned.
Was it not overturned because of a facemask earlier in the play? Because, if so, that’s not how the NFL rule book is enforced. A facemask penalty isn’t reviewable and there are reasons why the rule is written that way. When the play was reviewed, the only determination the officiating crew was responsible to make was whether or not Flacco was down before the ball started coming out of his hand.
There was clear evidence that Flacco lost possession of the ball on his way down, so why did the league choose to ignore it?
twitter: @raidersbeat
Because it wasn’t a fumble.
It’s pretty funny how you point out that the officials messed up the challenge, but gloss over the fact that the game may have been different had the officials not missed an obvious facemask, also, driving the QB into the ground could have been called as well. It may have been a fumble, but if called correctly, it would have been a first down for denver. Stop whining, your team won! I will say the raiders deserved the win, bad/missed calls or not.
BS call that the non fumble call is to be expected of officials officiating Raiders’ games. Throw in the delayed pass interference calls where the flag was thrown at least two to three seconds after the play was over.
What about the obvious face mask before any fumble that wasn’t called.
There was on obvious facemask on Flacco too but that was never called as well
The facemask should have been called which would have given the Broncos first and goal. The fumble was irrelevant. That should be the real subject of this article.
Dude the Raiders won! So quit bitching about a questionable call, while dismissing another questionable call!
Officials missed the facemask on the play, which was more “obvious” than the “fumble”.