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Left tackle Taylor Decker catches ball for 2 points.
The referee crew headed by ref Brad Allen, which blew the call on the Detroit Lions' two-point conversion Saturday night against Dallas, can expect to be downgraded, with some refs not officiating in the post season, ESPN's Adam Schefter predicted Sunday.
He said it's not the first goof for the crew this season.
"In the postseason, it's going to be mixed crews. A large part of Brad Allen's crew is not going to be officiating in the postseason," Schefter said. "You're going to get downgraded and the chances are that many of them are not going to be involved in the postseason because the league has a huge issue here where there's a controversy over officiating."
At the center of the controversy: Jared Goff tossed a completion to left tackle Taylor Decker to make it 21-20 with seconds left. Then came a flag, declaring Decker ineligible because he did not properly report as eligible. The Lions lost 20-19.
Decker, Coach Dan Campbell and other Lions insisted that Decker did notify the ref. Ref Allen insisted after the game that Decker never reports.
"No matter who's right and who's wrong it's Sunday morning of Week 17 and we're talking about whether the officials got a call right that threatens to impact the entire playoff picture," Schefter said. "It's ridiculous. And there have been way way too many instances of this this year and there are a lot of teams that are pissed off."
"Now we have a scenario that has the real possibility of totally rearranging the NFC playoff picture because if the Detroit Lions, now who are basically locked into the three seed, win in the opening round, their second round game is probably going to be at an NFC East team as opposed to hosting the game, not only that but next week the Lions are probably locked into number... One call has completely changed the way that the NFC playoff picture can look."
