Referee Shawn Smith and his crew will be persona non grata in Indianapolis for a long time after Sunday’s events. These officials will have to wait a long time for tables at Prime 47 and Harry and Izzy’s and the legendary St. Elmo’s with all that happened late in the fourth quarter.
With 47 seconds left in the game, and the Colts up 38-33, a sack fumble in the Colts’ favor was negated by an illegal contact penalty on cornerback Darrell Baker. And on the very next play, Baker was busted for defensive pass interference.
Here are the two plays.
Illegal contact:
Defensive pass interference:
Both calls were highly suspect. The illegal contact play seemed to show Baker and receiver Amari Cooper hand-fighting about equally. And the pass interference call seemed to come on a pass that was uncatchable.
But those two penalties set up Kareem Hunt’s one-yard game-winning touchdown with 19 seconds left.
On Tuesday, Colts owner Jim Irsay said that the NFL told him that both calls were incorrect.
URGENT NFL/COLTS NEWS:
🏈 #5 QB Anthony Richardson’s surgery today in LA was a success! It was a long procedure and his shoulder injury has been repaired. No new surprises were found during surgery – they just repaired what was expected. Anthony is doing well and thanks everyone…— Jim Irsay (@JimIrsay) October 25, 2023
Sadly, there’s no way to reverse the final result. Also, what Irsay did is also apparently verboten by NFL standards, so let’s preserve this for posterity just in case.
Might as well screencap this bad boy… https://t.co/qbEE1AzzbO pic.twitter.com/gBeiP8HnDU
— Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar) October 25, 2023
