No consolation for Bills as NFL finally admits crucial mistake 15 months too late
The NFL's growing dysfunction was perhaps never more evident than on Saturday, when the league finally admitted that a crucial penalty called against Buffalo Bills offensive lineman Cody Ford in January of 2020 was wrong.
Ford was flagged for a legal hit that was egregiously ruled to be a peel-back block on a third-down scramble by Josh Allen that would have made it fourth down at the Texans' 38-yard line in overtime, giving the Bills a chance to try a 55-yard field goal that could have ended the game.
Instead, the Bills were pushed out of field-goal range by the penalty and punted it back to Houston, which won with a field goal on the ensuing possession.
Not only did the league double down on the call by fining Ford for the hit days later, but incredibly it now has taken the same play and used it as an example of a legal block in its most recent officiating training video.
"Back towards his own end line, and again just makes really more of a nudge block,” senior vice president of officiating training and development Walt Anderson said in describing Ford's block near the end of the video. “Not the type of forcible contact threshold that has to be met for a blindside block rule.”
It's important to note that the peel-back block rule itself hasn't changed. It's just that either the quality control was/is so poor or something insidious was/is going on in this age of legalized betting being promoted on every single play.
No word on whether Ford will get his money refunded.
He should sue if he doesn't.
The Bills, of course, have no recourse. They just have to grimace and bear it.
A victory in that situation was no guarantee, as all Bills fans who remember Scott Norwood's miss from 47 yards in Super Bowl XXV know. But the call was egregious.
Missing penalties is one thing. No crew can be expected to catch everything. But the feeling here is that staring right at something and making a horribly wrong call should result in something more than just a quiet admission 15 months after the fact.
Nick Fierro is the publisher of Bills Central. Check out the latest Bills news at www.si.com/nfl/bills and follow Fierro on Twitter at @NickFierro.
