{"id":688300,"date":"2026-01-19T08:57:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T08:57:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/688300\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T08:57:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T08:57:19","slug":"nfls-rules-analyst-pressed-over-controversial-bills-interception","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/688300\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL’s rules analyst pressed over controversial Bills interception"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former head coach Steve Mariucci made sure to push NFL rules analyst Walt Anderson.<\/p>\n

He wanted to know who made the call on the controversial interception in overtime of the Bills-Broncos game Saturday<\/a> in the divisional round, when Brandin Cooks appeared to initially catch the ball before Ja\u2019Quan McMillan took possession away for an interception.<\/p>\n

And Mariucci, during Anderson\u2019s weekly segment on NFL Network<\/a>, wanted to know why fans \u2014 both in attendance and watching on television \u2014 didn\u2019t hear from referee Carl Cheffers himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to realize every play behind the scenes is being reviewed by multiple people,\u201d Anderson said when Mariucci pushed him about Cheffers. \u201cThey\u2019re looking at all these angles. And part of the guidelines that the league has established is when replay, you have a ruling on the field, and when replay has all of these angles to take a look and see was the ruling on the field wrong or was the ruling on the field correct, and if you can confirm that the ruling on the field was correct, they really want to move the game along and they don\u2019t want to have unnecessary stoppages.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand, I get people\u2019s point that, \u2018Well, it\u2019d been good to get a little more explanation from that standpoint,\u2019 but I personally thought that really CBS did a pretty good job with their analysts with explaining why it was not a completed catch and was in fact an interception.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mariucci then responded that he wanted to hear from Cheffers \u2014 and that \u201cI didn\u2019t want to hear from Tony Romo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BroncosBroncos cornerback Ja\u2019quan McMillian (29) intercepts a pass intended for Buffalo Bills wide receiver Brandin Cooks (18) during overtime of an NFL divisional round playoff football game, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026, in Denver. AP<\/p>\n

With the Bills facing a second-and-11 from their own 38-yard line near the eight-minute mark of overtime, Josh Allen floated a ball down the field for Cooks, who, if he completed the catch, would\u2019ve positioned Buffalo for a potential game-winning field goal.<\/p>\n

Instead, when Cooks hit the ground, the ball became loose, Anderson said during his segment.<\/p>\n

\"WaltWalt Anderson is pictured during an NFL Network segment Jan. 18. Screengrab via X\/@NFLGameDay<\/p>\n

\u201cBy definition, that would be normally an incomplete pass if it comes out and hits the ground,\u201d Anderson continued. \u201cNow the reality here is the ball never hits the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because McMillan emerged with possession, giving the ball back from the Broncos and allowing Will Lutz to hit the game-winning field goal in their 33-30 win<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Anderson reiterated twice that there are multiple people in New York City and at the stadium are looking at every angle of all the plays \u2014 and the NFL has \u201cinvested millions of dollars in the Hawk-Eye system,\u201d Anderson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo they\u2019re looking at all the angles, they\u2019re talking with each other, they\u2019re confirming that the call on the field was the ball was immediately loose when it hit the ground, it didn\u2019t hit the ground and was gained control by the defender,\u201d Anderson said. \u201cThat\u2019s why it was an interception.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bills head coach Sean McDermott was left furious by how the ruling transpired.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former head coach Steve Mariucci made sure to push NFL rules analyst Walt Anderson. He wanted to know…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":688301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2048],"tags":[215,214,53,2086,258,7,6,84,9],"class_list":{"0":"post-688300","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-buffalo-bills","8":"tag-bills","9":"tag-buffalo","10":"tag-buffalo-bills","11":"tag-buffalobills","12":"tag-denver-broncos","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-nfl-playoffs","16":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115920938792633983","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688300","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=688300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/688301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=688300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=688300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=688300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}