Alan12 said

Agree with most of the first paragraph. It always was and always has been Cavaletto as the main culprit; however Vinovich and Turner both bear the same amount of blame for different reasons. Vinovich because he wasn't on the same page with or in control of his crew as the head official and Turner for being spineless and folding like a cheap suit when challenged by Cavaletto who essentially told him what he (and everyone else with a functioning brain) saw occur on that play was wrong and only Cavaletto saw the correct thing.

The bolded portion is something I always seen repeated across this board and others in reference to playoff officiating and it's typically correct more often than not. It's an easy excuse, however regarding this particular game, these officials were more than familiar with each other and the way they officiate games because it wasn't the first time they officiated together.

Of that crew:

• 3 of the 7 worked on the same crew together that whole season: Vinovich (referee), Stritesky (umpire), and Cavaletto (side judge)
• 2 others, Turner (down judge) and Prukop (back judge) both worked the whole season together on Corrente's crew
• the 2 remaining officials, Baynes (line judge) and Hill (field judge) were the only ones from a crew other than Vinovich's or Corrente's; Bayne from Boger's crew and Hill from Hochuli's crew

However a mere 2 weeks before that NFC Championship, Vinovich, Stritesky, and Baynes all officiated the Colts-Texans Wild Card game together and the next day, Turner, Cavaletto, and Hill all called the Chargers-Ravens Wild Card game together. So 6 of the 7 officials had worked together that season before 1/20/2019 with as recently as 2 weeks earlier, including the 2 officials at the forefront of the controversial play.

In that aforementioned Chargers-Ravens game, Cavaletto had a blown call on a potential Ravens' TD to Crabtree that had to be overturned by review and and here's the kicker...

With 1:43 left in the game with the Chargers up by 6, the ever stoic Patrick Turner valiantly threw a flag for a blatant offensive holding against the Chargers' Russell Okung on a Melvin Gordon 9-yd run that would've converted a 3rd & 6 and all but iced the game for them considering the Ravens had 0 timeouts remaining. No one dared challenge his infallible eagle eyes that day and nothing could prevent him from unholstering his flag and launching it into orbit as it helped the Ravens get the ball back for one last drive with a chance to win it in front of their home crowd.

A dreaded shame he entirely lost his vision, gall, and his better judgement simultaneously two weeks later with 1:45 left in our game.

After the 2021 season.
https://www.footballzebras.com/2022...etire-bringing-on-field-zebra-departure-to-9/And I'm sure he got a fabulous retirement package from the League in appreciation of his service.

Agreed. That's my main complaint with Vinovich, he lied about not seeing it when one of the network cameras on the sideline clearly show him looking in that direction despite that not being where his area of focus is on a pass play. Not only lied about it, but went out of his way to lie about it before he was ever even prompted if he saw what transpired.


He could've just left it at it being a "judgement call by the covering official". Why immediately mention that unless you know the next question is likely, "Did you see the contact in question and/or did you think it constituted a flag" where he would've had to make an even more brazen lie.

Like you said, I understand pass interference isn't Vinovich's call to make as the referee, but as the head official, he "oversees everything related to the officials" and is to be "the final authority on disputed rulings".

He should've recognized there was a disputed ruling between Turner and Cavaletto (considering Cavaletto walked 10 yards over into Turner's vicinity) and conferred with both of them asking what each saw. He instead did nothing and allowed one of his senior officials to bully another official (who was closer to the spot of the foul than Cavaletto was) out of making the correct call and claiming ignorance to the situation by lying about not seeing. That raises a big stink to me.

Going back to the "final authority on disputed rulings" tidbit, had Turner not wilted to Cavaletto's pressure and maintained there was an infraction, then what? Vinovich "didn't see" the play allegedly. How can he be the final authority on a play he didn't see and his officials have different opinions on? Would he side with his senior official? Or the official that was closer to the play?

The sad thing about it all, even though Turner was closer to the play than Cavaletto and had the right call, Cavaletto actually did have a better view of the contact in relation to where the ball was than Turner did and not only did he purposefully refuse to make the correct call, he arrogantly waved off Turner and intimidated him from making the correct call. We all recognize this view as being cut-and-dry evidence that it was pass interference:



What a lot of people don't realize is the cameraman of this shot (wearing the red NFL Television vest kneeling down in the video below) is literally standing RIGHT BEHIND Cavaletto on this play so this is more or less almost the EXACT same angle Cavaletto saw the play from, albeit a step or so to the right. From Cavaletto's view a step to the left he without a doubt saw how much space there was between the contact and the ball arriving and knew it was WAY early.

When the broadcast switches to this view, you can see Cavaletto's right pant leg enter the left side of the frame. He saw.



Pitiful.

Click to expand...