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Officials Fumble Call on Pickett’s Lateral vs. Packers

Steelers QB Kenny Pickett’s controversial pass was deemed incomplete rather than a lateral, a ruling that played a huge role in the Packers’ loss on Sunday.
Bill Huber|
Officials Fumble Call on Pickett’s Lateral vs. Packers
Officials Fumble Call on Pickett’s Lateral vs. Packers

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Green Bay Packers

GREEN BAY, Wis. – Bad things happen to bad teams.

The Green Bay Packers dropped to 3-6 by losing 23-19 to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday. Arguably the biggest play of the game wasn’t made by the Steelers or the Packers. Rather, it was made by referee Scott Novak.

With about 3 1/2 minutes to go in the first half, the Steelers faced a second-and-9 from their 16. Pickett threw a sideways pass to running back Jaylen Warren. The pass was ruled incomplete on the field. Coach Matt LaFleur challenged, but the ruling stood.

“I thought it was pretty clear to me, but somebody else felt differently,” LaFleur said. “That’s the way it is. I guess I was wrong.”

During the game, CBS rules expert Gene Steratore, who was a referee from 2006 through 2017, agreed with Novak.

“To me, it was just not enough to overturn one way or the other,” Steratore said on the broadcast.

On Twitter, Steratore broke down the mechanics of the ruling a bit more in-depth with the help of three photographs.

Focus on the location of the ball and not the feet of Pickett when he threw it and Warren when he dropped it.

“Kenny Pickett’s throwing arm is behind his back leg when he releases the ball,” Steratore wrote. “This is important because determining forwards or backwards is based off of where the ball leaves the hand, not where the QB's feet are. Let's say that the ball leaves his hand at about the 9.25-yard line.”

The Original RanMan on X had his own breakdown of the play, complete with lines connecting the yard lines to help overcome the lack of a perfect, straight-down-the-line camera angle.

He agreed with Steratore’s assessment of where Pickett threw the ball. However, his lines show Warren touched the ball at or just inside the 9-yard line.

That’s a backward pass and it should have been ruled a fumble.

“To me, looking at the big screen, it looked like it was a little behind him,” said the Packers’ Rashan Gary, who ultimately recovered the loose ball. “But, at the end of the day, I’m not a referee. So, they called it how they wanted to call it.”

While the ball was still loose, officials blew the play dead.

However, with Warren on his back after getting blasted by Carrington Valentine and Gary ready for the scoop, by rule, the ball should have belonged to the Packers at the spot of Gary’s recovery inside the 5-yard line.

Thus, the Packers should have had a first-and-goal rather than taking over at their 46-yard line following the punt.

The Packers wasted the good field position, punted and went into the locker room trailing 17-13 at halftime.

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Bill Huber
BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packers On SI, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.

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