VP of Officiating says Walt Anderson, referees got Bills-Seahawks calls wrong

The NFL’s VP of Officiating says the referees in Walt Anderson’s missed a key call just before halftime in Monday night’s Seahawks-Bills game.

There was a disastrous sequence before halftime in which the referees got about three calls wrong, essentially costing the Bills three points (full details here).

It all started with Richard Sherman running offsides in an attempt to block a 53-yard field goal attempt and diving into Bills kicker Dan Carpenter. Senior VP of Officiating Dean Blandino says the referees in the game made a mistake by only calling Sherman for being offsides while leaving out the unnecessary roughness/personal foul penalty that should have also been called.

At the end of the half in #BUFvsSEA its unnecessary roughness for hitting the kicker. Foul means he can stay in the game.

— Dean Blandino (@DeanBlandino) November 8, 2016

FOX officiating guru Mike Pereira similarly pointed out the mistake.

You can't have roughing the kicker because the play was shut down for defense offside. You can have a late hit which I think it was.

— Mike Pereira (@MikePereira) November 8, 2016

Pereira also noted how the referees messed up by calling a delay of game penalty on the Bills, pushing their field goal attempt back five yards.

I wish I could explain that mess. I don't get how the umpire is still over the ball as the play clock is under 5.

— Mike Pereira (@MikePereira) November 8, 2016

Seems to me they should have pumped the play clock back to 25 seconds with the umpire over the ball. It certainly was not handled very well.

— Mike Pereira (@MikePereira) November 8, 2016

You know the refs really did a poor job if the VP of Officiating is saying so in the middle of a game.