With the Bears trailing by five points in the final minute of last night’s game and facing third and goal from the fourth, quarterback Justin Fields threw a potential game winner to the receiver Dante Pettis.
Pettis was unable to make the catch. In large part because he was getting mugged by Commanders security Darrick Forrest.
Forrest clearly made premature contact with Pettis. Specifically, Forrest pulled the receiver’s arm down as the ball was arriving.
Sometimes, officials bury the flags a little deeper in their pockets in crunch time. But that was interference, in any scenario, any quarter, any moment, any game.
Down Judge David Oliver, who was looking right at the play, disagreed. So did Amazon’s Kirk Herbstreit.
Said Herbstreit after the “bullshit” chant erupted at Soldier Field, “Of course, they want the pass interference call. To me, I saw Forrest’s head on the ball, two guys fighting for the football.”
They were indeed fighting for the football. But Forrest fought for it in a way that amounts to interference.
Whether Herbstreit saw it incorrectly or is tiptoeing on eggshells when it comes to calling out potential officiating mistakes, Herbstreit’s assessment was simply not correct.
After the game, Bears coach Matt Eberflus acknowledged that he believed it was pass interference. He also acknowledged that ultimately there wasn’t anything he could do about it.
“Of course,” Eberflus said. “It doesn’t matter, when they call it, there’s nothing you can do at that point. . . . You can argue it, if you want to.”
Arguing it won’t change the outcome, but there’s nothing wrong with pointing out the mistake. And if Herbstreit isn’t comfortable doing it, they can dial up rules analyst Terry McAulay, who could have quickly said something like, “The defender grabs and pulls the receiver’s arm down before the ball arrives, preventing his opportunity to make the catch. That’s textbook pass interference.”
That doesn’t mean the Bears would have scored a touchdown with first and goal from the one, but they should have had the opportunity to try.
Officials missed key defensive pass interference foul in Commanders-Bears originally appeared on Pro Football Talk