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The NFL has added a second instant replay referee to take notes on the lead-reviewer after last week’s botched call during the Chargers vs. Steelers game. The play involved Steelers safety Troy Polamalu pickeing up a fumble and then running 12 yards for a touchdown. After reviewing the instant replay, referee Scott Green reversed the touchdown with time having expired saying it was due to an illegal forward pass by the Chargers. But, in a slightly confusing statement by the league, the play was overturned erroneously: There were three passes on the play. The first was a completed forward pass from San Diego's Philip Rivers to LaDainian Tomlinson. The second, from Tomlinson to Chris Chambers, was initially ruled a legal backward pass but then reversed in replay to an illegal forward pass. The third, from Chambers, was a legal backward pass that hit the ground and was returned for the touchdown by Pittsburgh's Polamalu. The incorrect reversal of the on-field ruling of a touchdown was acknowledged immediately following the game by referee Scott Green in the pool report interview with a representative of the media. If any forward pass, legal or illegal, hits the ground, the play is dead immediately. The officiating crew mistakenly determined that the backward pass that Polamalu legally recovered and returned for the touchdown was the pass that was reversed in replay to being forward and illegal. Therefore, the crew ruled that the ball was dead when it hit the ground and the play was over. (The actual illegal forward pass -- Tomlinson to Chambers -- did not hit the ground and therefore the play is allowed to continue.)
Green said in a post-game interview, "We should have let the play go through in the end, yes." He added, “It was misinterpreted that instead of killing the play, we should have let the play go through." On the addition of the reviewing referee for instant replays, the league clarified the reasoning. “It’s to help the referee with the administration of the play, if necessary, after the referee makes a decision,” NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said in an e-mail to Bloomberg News. See the play, here:
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