{"id":663306,"date":"2026-01-08T08:24:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T08:24:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/663306\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T08:24:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T08:24:17","slug":"former-nfl-ref-says-officials-were-right-not-to-call-penalty-on-steelers-during-ravens-missed-field-goal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/663306\/","title":{"rendered":"Former NFL Ref Says Officials Were Right Not To Call Penalty On Steelers During Ravens’ Missed Field Goal"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pittsburgh Steelers dealt with their fair share of controversy during the 2025 season. That even included the final play against the Baltimore Ravens in Week 18. Ravens kicker Tyler Loop missed the game-winning field goal, giving the Steelers the win. However, many people later complained that the referees<\/a> should\u2019ve called a penalty on the Steelers for leverage on that play. It looked like Ben Skowronek pushed off to help himself jump. Former NFL referee Dean Blandino explained why the officials were right not to throw a flag, though.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t want that called,\u201d Blandino said recently on the 2 Pros and a Cup of Joe podcast.<\/a> \u201cThat happens a lot on field goal block. What you\u2019re really looking for is pushing off to create that height to block the kick. I thought that would have been an incredibly technical call, and that would have been more controversial than anything else.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, I was good with that. I know people a lot of times on social media, and obviously, it was a shorter kick, so you\u2019re looking for other reasons why it might have been missed, but I was good with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blandino hits the nail on the head. A screenshot from the play may show Skowronek putting his hands on players to help him leap upwards. However, if you actually watch the play, you\u2019ll see that Skowronek had already leaped and hit the apex of his jump before that. He didn\u2019t get any lift-off from touching other players.<\/p>\n

The NFL defines leverage as \u201ca defensive player jumping or standing on a teammate or opponent to block or attempt to block an opponent\u2019s kick.\u201d As Blandino points out, Skowronek\u2019s hand placement didn\u2019t help him create any height. He was already on his way down at that point.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s splitting hairs to complain about that call. Yes, the officiating in that game was bad. The referees made a lot of questionable calls. However, the Ravens shouldn\u2019t have put themselves in that situation.<\/a> They had chances before that to control the game.<\/p>\n

Also, it didn\u2019t look like Skowronek\u2019s presence had any impact on the kick. Loop messed up. That\u2019s all there is to it. While it\u2019s fair to be upset about the results, arguing that Skowronek should\u2019ve been called for leverage now does nothing. It\u2019s a silly argument, and Blandino, who spent years officiating games, makes that even clearer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pittsburgh Steelers dealt with their fair share of controversy during the 2025 season. That even included the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655365,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[36867,117,65262,7,6,57],"class_list":{"0":"post-663306","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-2-pros-and-a-cup-of-joe","9":"tag-baltimore-ravens","10":"tag-dean-blandino","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-nfl","13":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115858523096656372","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=663306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}