The Green Bay Packers still aren’t sure why officials at Lambeau Field picked up a pass interference penalty on a fourth-down play in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s 28-22 loss to the Minnesota Vikings.
The flag, which would have given the Packers a first down in the red zone and their comeback attempt new life, was disregarded by officials after a group discussion, resulting in an incomplete pass that handed the ball back to the Vikings.
Quarterback Aaron Rodgers was sure he saw a blatant pass interference penalty committed by Vikings safety Anthony Harris on Packers tight end Robert Tonyan on the fourth-down play with 8:21 left.
“From my vantage point, it wasn’t even close,” Rodgers said. “It actually helped that the ball fluttered up in the air a little bit because it threw off the timing slightly and (Harris) got there clearly early. It didn’t seem like a tough call to me.”
“From my vantage point, it wasn’t even close…It didn’t seem like a tough call to me,” Aaron Rodgers on this play: pic.twitter.com/k1OKvNhboF
— The Packers Wire (@ThePackersWire) November 2, 2020
Video replays from several angles showed Harris, who never got his head turned around to find the ball, making contact with Tonyan and wrapping his arm around the Packers tight end before the ball arrived, interfering with his ability to make the play. As Rodgers stated, the ball was thrown slightly behind Tonyan, helping create the contact with Harris, who didn’t know where the ball was as he attempted to disrupt the catch.
Based on the NFL rule book, Harris was guilty of committing at least two prohibited acts involving pass interference, including “contact by a player who is not playing the ball that restricts the opponent’s opportunity to make the catch,” and “extending an arm across the body of an opponent, thus restricting his ability to catch a pass, and regardless of whether the player committing such act is playing the ball.”
During the broadcast, FOX officiating analyst Dean Blandino disagreed with the officials’ decision to pick up the flag.
The Packers, down 14 points, had a chance to cut the lead to just one score with a touchdown. Instead, the Vikings took over at the 32-yard line.
“A score there changes the way the game goes,” Rodgers said.
Coach Matt LaFleur said he didn’t receive much in the form of an explanation for why the penalty was picked up.
“The explanation I got was that they talked about it and they decided it wasn’t pass interference. So, I gotta go back and look at it,” LaFleur said. “It sure looked, when I was out there, that it was PI. But again, I haven’t seen many replays, so I really don’t know.”
The Vikings went three-and-out and punted following the fourth down play, but the possession took up another two and a half minutes of game clock. On the ensuing drive, the Packers drove the length of the field and scored, but LaFleur’s team ran out of time down six points on the final possession.
Had the penalty been assessed and the Packers scored either a field goal or touchdown, the final eight minutes – and especially the final drive – could have played out differently.
Earlier in the contest, the Vikings had a scoring drive extended twice via pass interference penalties – one by Jaire Alexander and another by Josh Jackson. Based on video review, Harris’ contact with Tonyan was at least as interfering with the result of the play as the previous plays involving Alexander and Jackson.
