Perrera defends Officials on NFL Network

Did anyone catch Mike Perrera on Total Access last night? He said, basically, that the four out of the five questionable calls were correct. The only screw up was Hasselbeck's "block", because, as he put it, Bill Leavy couldn't tell from his position that Matt actually whiffed on McFadden (he's 26, right?) when he went to tackle Taylor. Nevermind that no official told Leavy this fact after the play. Ugh. He justified the Locklear hold - "If you look here Rich, he's has the right arm hooked from behind", Jackson's no-TD (2nd one) "Pylon doesn't matter when it comes to contact by the player, only the ball", and I didn't really catch the justification for the other two. Can anyone tell me what he said?

To me it seemed like he was trying to explain the rules in anyway possible to justify the calls. Its as if he was going out of his way to do so as well. I'm not going to get into it again, but there were at least 2 calls that he said were right, that I cannot justify as being made correctly by any means.

Locklear & D-Jax's push-off, I'm guessing. I mean, Jackson pushed off a little bit, but considering he was grabbed not ten steps before that... Also, I loved when Eisen asked him why don't the officials lighten up, because it is the Super Bowl, after all...

The Roethlisberger TD and the Jackson push off were the two I really had a problem with. The Locklear hold was another one, but the two I mentioned were the ones that really pissed me off.

Agreed Mike. But there more than 2 questionable calls. I didn't buy their justification on the Locklear, JAckson, & Hasselbeck calls at all. The back judge who was right there with Darryl Jackson & the DB didn't do squat when the DB manhandled the WR with BOTH FREAKING HANDS ON HIM, but threw his flag when JAckson did the last pushoff, & he was goaded into it by the manhandling imo.

Perrera all but admitted the Big Ben TD was signaled not a TD at 1st, then the official changed his mind & signaled TD. When 1 arm is extanded it means No TD, but then he put up both arms & I was reminded of the obvious doubt about it that I felt when I saw it in realtime during the SB. There are still some lingering doubts about that Steeler TD.

I lost it when he was explaining how Hasselbeck got "out of the pocket" therefore holding didn't matter ???? So why the Locklear flag? Or was he trying to explain the pocket defined for intentional grounding?

Eisen was way too nice to him with the blurry, nebulous explanations.

I guarantee you in EVERY NFL game there are at least 3 plays exactly like Locklear's, sometimes even worse, that go uncalled. That being said, it WAS holding...the problem is that there's no consistency in alling holding...it's called about 40% of the time it actually occurs.

There were several in that game alone that were worse holds. Actually Jojo, I think he wasn't referring to Hasselbeck being out of the pocket. I think it was more Locklear's position w/ regards to Haggins. Still doesn't make much sense.

I know what Perrera meant as far as the mechanics of the side judge on Big Ben's TD. After all, I ref'd soccer for 12 years, and I screwed up my mechanics all of the time (ha). But it was still a crap call. Should err on the side of caution in the friggin Super Bowl.

This post has been edited by Hayvlin on Feb 16 2006, 10:41 AM

I agree with Mike here that Perrera was simply trying to explain things away.

What made me sick was his view on the Locklear hold. "It had the ingredients of a hold." What does that mean? Sure, it had the makings of a hold, because the Steeler defender started off off-sides and Locklear had to play catch-up but he still didn't hold him. The official was thrown off by the fact that Haggans fell to the floor, but he fell on his own. There's no way you can tell me that that's a hold. And that my friends was that back-breaker.

Perrera is a joke, same goes for his reckless band of officials. Also, gotta give kudos to Rich Eisen and the rest of the NFL Network for being such puppets. Not that I expect anything different, it's just like basically, what's the point? It's the NFL Network, of course they are going to cover their behinds on there.

I don't know about that. Eisen was sticking it to him as much as he could. You don't want to piss off the guy enough to cancel the segment (ask Dana Jacobson about Bobby Knight sometime). Read Eisen's column. He definitely argued as much as he could. If there is anything Eisen is good for, aside from supporting Michigan, it's needling information out and be condiscending at the same time.

He should have gone all John Stewart on him and torn him to shreds about not just the Super Bowl, but the entire playoffs.

Your right though, I'm being too tough on Eisen. He questioned him about the Ben TD and the Locklear hold. He did a decent job but what can you expect when he works for the NFL Network.

Forgot to mention that I think the funniest part of the interview was Perrera's response to Eisen asking why Leavy ran in with only 1 hand as if to spot the ball at the half yard line on the Roethlisberger "touchdown", here's the classic response:

Ahhh classic, almost as funny as the Super Bowl itself