Joe Judge predictably wasn’t thrilled that Monday night’s referees picked up their flag for pass interference on the Giants' unsuccessful late two-point conversion in their 25-23 loss to the Buccaneers.
“I thought [the official] made the right call when he threw the flag,” Judge said of Antoine Winfield Jr.’s arrival to knock the pass away from Dion Lewis. "I’m not sure why it got picked up. We had a pretty good view.
“I thought [the official] made the right call the first time, and I thought normally your first instinct is right,” Judge added. “We’ve got to put ourselves in a position that we can have success and not bring in a third party. It’s tough enough to beat the Bucs.”
But both Judge and Daniel Jones knew that play never should have come down to a flag anyway.
Lewis was open right away, streaking out of the backfield to the right flat. If Jones had thrown the ball immediately and delivered it to the outside — when and how he was supposed to — it would have been pitch and catch.
Jones hesitated a long while before throwing, however, as he often does in the red zone, and that allowed Winfield to get outside. Jones also threw the ball behind Lewis, which was the only reason Winfield even made a play on it.
“Gotta get the ball out there sooner to him,” Jones admitted.
Frankly, I thought picking up that flag was the correct call, unusual as it was for the officials to do so. But I thought the Giants did get screwed by two other penalties called against their defense in the second half that both led to Bucs touchdowns.
The first was the pass interference call against James Bradberry for yanking Jaydon Mickens' jersey. Tom Brady’s pass was uncatchable out of the back of the end zone. That should have been no foul.
Instead, that 14-yard penalty gave the Bucs 1st-and-goal at the 3, and Brady hit Rob Gronkowski for a TD to go up 15-14 after an unsuccessful two-point conversion.
The second bad call was a fourth quarter flag against corner Isaac Yiadom for lowering his head to initiate contact. Bucs tight end Cameron Brate is the one who lowered his helmet to initiate contact, which is supposed to be a penalty on Brate, but Yiadom was hit with the flag.
That turned a 25-yard pass into a 34-yard gain with the Bucs awarded nine more yards as half the distance to the goal line from the Giants' 17. Brady hit Mike Evans for an 8-yard TD pass, putting the Bucs up 22-17, a lead they held for good.
For what it’s worth, here is what referee Brad Rogers said in Monday night’s pool report about why the crew picked up the flag for pass interference against Winfield Jr.
“The side judge had the flag thrown on the play and came to the down judge who was on that side of the goal line,” Rogers said. “The communication between the side judge and the down judge was that the defender contacted the receiver simultaneously as the ball came in. And in order to have defensive pass interference, it has to be clearly early and hinder the receiver’s ability to make the catch.”
Asked if there isn’t a higher threshold to pick up a flag in that kind of situation, Rogers added: “You want to make sure that it meets the qualifications for pass interference. And in our communication on the field, the down judge and the side judge communicated about the action and believed that it was appropriate to pick that flag up.”
You do have to wonder if the referees would have picked up that flag if there had been fans in the stands. But unfortunately, we’ll never know.
DOES GOLDEN WANT TO GO?
Golden Tate is an intelligent guy, and everything he does, he does for a reason. So when he yelled “throw me the ball” into the camera after his late touchdown catch — less than 24 hours before the trade deadline — it was not hard to see that as Tate asking for either a larger role or a new home.
Tate, 32, has been almost completely marginalized in Jason Garrett’s offense. He had two catches for 31 yards, including that great catch on his 19-yard TD. And he threw one left-handed pass for 18 yards to Wayne Gallman.
But he played just 38 of 74 offensive snaps (51%) and has played an average of 54% of the snaps the last four weeks, with only four total catches the past three games.
It is hard to believe a team would be willing to take on Tate’s contract, though. He had two years remaining at near-$11 million and $8.4 million cap hits, respectively, plus the $5 million cap charge as a rental the rest of this season.
Dave Gettleman gave Tate a four-year, $37 million free agent deal with $23 million guaranteed in 2019. That was the GM’s proposed solution to replace Odell Beckham Jr., whom Gettleman had traded to the Cleveland Browns.
Speaking of the trade deadline, it’s Tuesday at 4 p.m. Kevin Zeitler and Tate are the two players it would benefit the Giants most to move, but both have contracts that could be prohibitive in finding a taker in a deal.
Zeitler played all 74 snaps Monday night for the Giants, so they certainly weren’t trying to protect him on Monday if they had a deal on the table waiting to be finalized. But the Giants also signed free agent guard Kenny Wiggins on Monday morning as insurance with Will Hernandez (COVID-19 reserve list) out and Zeitler a potential trade chip.
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