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USA Today Sports Media Group
Sport
Doug Farrar

The NFL’s Worst of the Week: Bad officiating, Steelers’ offense, Dion Dawkins’ flop, Quentin Johnston’s drop

Quentin Johnston Dion Dawkins Steelers NFL Jaylen Warren Tommy DeVito Browns (Organization) Kenny Pickett Adrian Hill Chargers

Football is a wonderful, thrilling, inspiring game that can lift us to new heights in our lives.

But football is also a weird, inexplicable, at times downright stupid game that may force you to perform Keith Moon-level furniture destruction in your own living room.

So, as much as we at Touchdown Wire endeavor to write about what makes the game great, there are also times when it’s important to point out the dumb plays, boneheaded decisions, and officiating errors that make football all too human.

Folks, it’s time for the Worst of the Week for Week 11 of the 2023 NFL season.

Adrian Hill's two big blown calls in Ravens-Bengals.

(Syndication: The Enquirer)

It is a day ending in “Y,’ so there’s clearly bad officiating going on in the NFL, and that’s certainly been true in Thursday night’s game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Cincinnati Bengals. The culprit in this particular day ending in “Y” is referee Adrian Hill and his crew, who made more than one atrocious call in an eventual 34-20 win for the Ravens.

The first blown call took a touchdown off the board for Baltimore. With 5:15 left in the first half, Lamar Jackson hit receiver Zay Flowers on a quick pass, and Flowers did the rest, taking the ball for what certainly looked like a 68-yard touchdown.

Somehow, Hill’s crew called holding on receiver Odell Beckham Jr., and the touchdown was nullified.

Then, with 54 seconds left in the first half, Jackson threw an incomplete pass to Flowers, but Bengals cornerback DJ Turner was flagged for defensive pass interference. If you can see defensive pass interference anywhere on this play, you have better eyes than we do.

Hill’s crew has not been impressive this season, but the Thursday night work was particularly sub-par.

Shaun Hochuli's road cooking in the Browns-Steelers game.

(Photo by Scott Taetsch/Getty Images)

The Cleveland Browns must have been wondering what they walked into when they played the Pittsburgh Steelers Sunday at their own Cleveland Browns Stadium, because referee Shawn Hochuli and his crew had some serious road cooking in the Steelers’ favor.

With 10:28 left in the first quarter, Steelers quarterback Kenny Pickett was sacked by Browns edge terror Myles Garrett. The box score will tell you that Pickett was down at his own one-yard line, but it certainly looked as if Pickett was sacked in the end zone for a safety, and two points for the Browns.

CBS Sports rules analyst and former NFL referee Gene Steratore agreed.

Sadly, this was not the inly instance in which Stefanski’s team would have legitimate issues with Hochuli and his crew.

Pittsburgh's offensive approach.

(Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports)

Earlier this week, we pointed out that the Pittsburgh Steelers under offensive coordinator Matt Canada have produced three of the ugliest winning seasons from an offensive perspective in pro football history — which is all three seasons in which Canada has held that position. The 2023 Steelers are the first team in the history of professional football to be outgained in each of their wins, and they’ve never held a positive point differential in any season under Canada.

The Steelers did not beat the Cleveland Browns on Sunday, even with Shawn Hochuli’s help, and they were outgained as per usual — 259 yards to 240. The Browns were starting rookie Dorian Thompson-Robinson, but they couldn’t match Pittsburgh’s offensive incompetence.

First, there was the disparity in use between running backs Jaylen Warren and Najee Harris. Warren has been by far the more dynamic player this season, gaining 5.1 yards per carry and forcing 27 missed tackles to Harris’ 4.0 yards per carry and 21 missed tackles forced. And in this 13-yard loss to the Browns, Warren had the one truly dynamic play with this 74-yard touchdown with 14:10 left in the third quarter.

So. Why did Warren get just nine carries (for 127 yards and that touchdown) to Harris’ 12 (for a sparking total of 35 yards)? Beats the heck out of us. Mike Tomlin didn’t have a lot of answers, either.

Then, there was this from quarterback Kenny Pickett after his performance, in which he completed 15 of 28 passes for 106 yards, no touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 62.5.

To be fair, the Browns came into this week with a 38% man coverage rate, fourth-highest in the league. But if you can’t adjust to what’s going on in the game… I mean, what are we doing here?

Quentin Johnston dropping the (potentially) game-winning touchdown for the Chargers.

(Syndication: The Post-Crescent)

In that Brandon Staley’s Los Angeles Chargers have been the kings of freaky, fluky losses throughout their head coach’s tenure, what happened at the end of the Chargers’ 23-20 loss to the Green Bay Packers was exactly on point.

With 30 seconds left in the game, Justin Herbert threw the ball deep to the rookie, selected 22nd overall in the 2023 draft. Johnston had a bead and a lead on Packers cornerback Carrington Valentine, and had the opportunity to either score a touchdown, or put the Chargers in field goal range to tie the game.

Johnston did neither of those things.

Woof. Staley tried to make the best of a bad situation after the fact, but the now 4-6 Chargers are certainly going to feel this one.

Well, he was playing against the Chargers’ defense in training camp, so…

The weird dichotomy of the Washington Commanders' defense.

(Brad Mills-USA TODAY Sports)

Give credit to the Washington Commanders’ defensive line for sacking New York Giants quarterback Tommy DeVito nine times on Sunday. Give equal raspberries to the Washington Commanders for blowing enough coverages to allow DeVito to look like a legitimate NFL starter, sacks aside.

The sack total was especially impressive given the fact that Washington recently traded Montez Sweat and Chase Young, its two best outside pass-rushers. Seven different defenders had at least one sack, led by linebacker David Mayo’s two.

But man… when DeVito is able to complete 18 of 26 passes for 246 yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 137.7, when he had completed 34 of 51 passes for 260 yards, three touchdowns, three interceptions, and a passer rating of 65.4 in his previous three NFL games in relief of injured quarterbacks Daniel Jones and Tyrod Taylor… well, we already know that any Jack Del Rio defense will feature more blown coverages than the legal limit should allow, and that happened here.

After the game, head coach Ron Rivera said… well, whatever this was.

Bills OT Dion Dawkins' obvious flop.

(Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports)

The Buffalo Bills came into Week 11’s game against the New York Jets with a need to turn things around. That started with the firing of offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey last Tuesday after a Monday Night Football loss to the Denver Broncos, and a clear reminder of what the Jets’ defense did to them in Week 1 — in a 22-16 loss, Jets safety Jordan Whitehead incepted three Josh Allen passes.

‘Same s***, different day’ — Inside Josh Allen’s three-interception disaster

Things were much better under new OC Joe Brady — the Bills win the rematch, 32-6, but the piqued nature of the game made itself apparent even before anything got going on the field.

Things were just as strange when the game started — this Angel Di Maria-level flop from offensive tackle Dion Dawkins was not exactly the best of football in its clearest form.

Former Jets center Nick Mangold, a seven-time Pro Bowler, two-time First-Team All-Pro and possible future Pro Football Hall of Famer, had the correct take on such things.

Ron Torbert's two missed calls on the Vikings' two fumbles.

(Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

The Denver Broncos beat the Minnesota Vikings, 21-20, in a thrilling Sunday Night Football matchup. And they really shouldn’t have.

Allow us to explain.

If there’s one guy in the NFL whose tendency to launch himself at opposing  players should be easily caught by referees, it’s Broncos safety Kareem Jackson. This season, Jackson had been ejected from two different games, fined four different times, and suspended for two games due to his unnecessary roughness penalties.

Jackson was back for Sunday night’s game, and per our friends at Broncos Wire, he vowed to change his style of play.

“I probably have to adjust it a little bit,” Jackson said in a recent interview with KMGH-TV’s Troy Renck. “As far as the tackling — lowering the target — I’ll try my best to do that.

“Definitely don’t want to be in this situation again. As far as going forward, I’m sure I’ll be in situations — these bang-bang plays — so for me, it’s all about staying on the field and not having to go through this again.”

Well, on the Vikings’ third play from scrimmage, tight end T.J. Hockenson took a direct snap and handed the ball to quarterback Josh Dobbs in what became a Dobbs fumble. How did that happen? Well, Jackson launched himself, leading with his helmet.

Not only was this targeting, but Jackson appeared to go right for Dobbs’ throwing shoulder. Dobbs was okay, but this could have been a lot worse.

NBC rules expert and former NFL referee Terry McAulay seemed to see it pretty clearly.

Why Torbert’s officiating crew didn’t call a penalty here is beyond us, except that it’s Reason No. 349.108 that officiating in the NFL has become inexcusably bad this season.

The Broncos were allowed to keep the ball, and kicked a field goal on their subsequent drive.

Then, with 2:52 left in the third quarter, Vikings running back Alexander Mattison fumbled on a run, and the Broncos recovered the ball again. However, eagle-eyed viewers will see that the snap didn’t occur until a full second after the game clock hit zero. That should have been a five-yard penalty, but a chance for another, more positive result. The Broncos got another field goal on that ill-gotten fumble.

Since the NFL prefers to let officials watch the game clock as opposed to having technology that makes it more automatic, we are in the throes of human error, and it’s become common practice to understand that the game clock is only an informal measurement of time.

This we know: The Vikings felt the pain of that inexactitude.

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