Brad Childress is pissed and according to a Fox television analyst who was quoted by the St. Paul Pioneer Press — a man who used to be the NFL’s director of officiating — Childress has every right to be pissed.
In fact, the head coach of the Minnesota Vikings called Sunday night’s game in Green Bay, “the worst officiated game I’ve ever seen.”
Childress is upset about a dreadful call by head referee Scott Green, a guy who has been involved in so many questionable calls — and I use the word “questionable” in a moral sense, not in a sense of competency — that you have to wonder why he hasn’t been investigated by the NFL (and having said that, he even got the Super Bowl job this past year).
On Sunday night, Green’s field judge signaled “touchdown” on a pass from Brett Favre to Visanthe Shiancoe in the second quarter of Sunday’s game, a touchdown pass that should have given the Vikings a 21-14 lead and ultimately, should have given them the victory in what was a terrific football game.
However, Green went under the hood and reversed the call and Childress went nuts. The NFL eventually called Childress and told him it was the wrong call, but the call by Green didn’t surprise me at all. Throughout the entire game, every time his crew told him that a call was going against the Packers, he had this pained look on his face. A couple of times, it even appeared as if he was trying to talk his crew out of the call.
Fox analyst and former NFL director of officiating, Mike Pereira told the Pioneer Press on Monday: ”You go under the hood to see if there is anything obvious that shows it wasn’t a touchdown. Maybe the receiver didn’t maintain control of the ball on his way to the ground. Maybe he didn’t have total control after he hit the ground. But there was not enough there to overturn the call in my opinion.”
Pereira added: “If the original call had been an incompletion, there was enough evidence for the Vikings to successfully challenge the ruling and that they would have been awarded a touchdown.”
During his Monday news conference Childress said that Carl Johnson, the league’s director of officials, admitted that Green ”erred” in overturning the touchdown call on what was a catch by Shiancoe, according to the league. Not surprisingly, Childress said he also was told a touchdown catch by Packers tight end Andrew Quarless in the second quarter would have been overturned had the Vikings challenged it.
“It’s supposed to be irrefutable evidence,” Childress said during his Monday news conference. “The guy is looking right down on it and says it is a touchdown. You have got to show them something that says it wasn’t a touchdown. I saw him control the ball. It’s not about forearms. It’s not about hands. I was told it was about hands. If he has it in his teeth and it touches the ground and he has it when he comes up, it’s a touchdown.”
Green has made a habit of bad calls in important situations. Raising the question, “Is he the NFL’s Tim Donaghy?”
After all, it was Green who pissed off Packers fans last year when he didn’t call a face-mask penalty against Arizona Cardinals DB, Mike Adams on the final play of the Packers’ playoff loss to the Cardinals. Green and his crew also failed to call an obvious roughing the passer penalty on the Cardinals a few plays before that.
Adam Schefter of ESPN also that Green also was the referee who botched the end of Pittsburgh’s 11-10 win over the Chargers last season, when he disallowed a touchdown at the end of the game. The only people interested in that touchdown would be people who had Pittsburgh to cover. By blowing the call, it made most bettors think that Green had something on the game.
Here is the transcript of Childress’s post-game comments on KFAN immediately following the game. This should get Childress fined, but it should also get Green fired (although it won’t):
“That’s the worst officiated game I’ve seen. That referee came over and apologized to me for not calling a hold on the scramble by (Packers quarterback Aaron) Rodgers. And I’ll tell you what, that’s his job. Protect the quarterback and look at the left tackle. Look at the left tackle hold his tail off.
“I must not understand a catch in the end zone for them to take Shiancoe’s off the board. That’s not the way it’s taught, that’s not the way we’re told. That goes back to the Tampa game that Tony (Dungy) coached years ago (and caused a change in the ruling of how the ground can alter a catch).
“You control the ball and it doesn’t make any difference if you control it with your hand or forearm. Period. That’s not the way it’s taught at our owner’s symposium and that’s wrong. That’s wrong. … They said he didn’t control it and he controlled it. The litmus is 50 drunks in a bar, those 50 drunks say that’s a catch and 50 writers in this room, you may be drunk too, but it’s a catch.”