NFL opens can of worms by putting head of officiating Walt Anderson on Monday Night Football broadcast

BOSTON -- We all want transparency from the NFL when it comes to the absolute avalanche of questionable calls made by referees and officials in just about every football game played every weekend. Some of us have even argued vociferously for more of it.

So you might think it would be hypocritical, then, to respond to a live TV appearance from the head of NFL officiating by saying it was bad.

But, brother, it was bad.

The moment took place out of nowhere on Monday night, when Walt Anderson popped in to the Monday Night Football broadcast to join Joe Buck, Troy Aikman and rules analyst John Parry to explain why a throw by Jared Goff was not deemed to have been intentional grounding.

Looking like a deer in the headlights, Anderson joined the broadcast to disagree with the assessment of Parry -- a former NFL official of 19 years -- that the play should have been penalized.

"Yeah Joe, thank you, uh, really with the intentional grounding rules allow a lot of flexibility for the quarterback to get rid of the ball, as long as he's doing so in the direction and vicinity," Anderson said. "The quarterback -- Detroit quarterback -- threw the ball right over the head of the receiver, number 26. He probably could have even reached up and touched it. So we feel this was both in the direction and vicinity and was properly not called a foul."

The play in question came on Detroit's opening possession, when Jared Goff faced pressure and spiked the ball into the turf somewhere between running back Jahmyr Gibbs and tight end Brock Wright.

"He remains in the pocket and there is no player in the vicinity," Parry said right after the play, asserting that it was a foul for intentional grounding.

The drive then continued for a long time, with the Lions running eight more plays that took four minutes off the game clock. After a field goal, the game went to a commercial break, and after that break, Anderson was there on the broadcast.

What prompted Anderson to step in to the broadcast is anyone's guess, as the 71-year-old typically operates in the shadows and only speaks publicly via pool reports hours after questionable calls are made in games. His explanations in those pool reports often lead to more questions than answers, but the NFL hasn't minded having a master of obfuscation in charge of the officiating department for the past several years.

(When is a good point to remind the world that "DeflateGate" as we know it never would have existed if Anderson had properly taken PSI measurements before the 2014 AFC Championship Game as he had been instructed to do, or if he hadn't conveniently forgotten which gauge he used to take those alleged pregame measurements, or if Anderson hadn't lost a bag of footballs, or if Anderson -- after apparently freaking out and swearing and temporarily losing his mind about said lost football bag -- hadn't simply used the bag of backup footballs for that game instead of using the footballs that had gone missing? Is now that time? I suppose it has to be.)

Perhaps Anderson never got over his former boss, Dean Blandino, once calling him out for doing such a horrible job of officiating a prime-time game in 2016 that there was no possible defense for it. And perhaps that's why Anderson always defends the calls made in games, no matter how wrong they might have been. Even if it requires some "Nineteen Eighty-Four" level of doublethink, Anderson has the officials' back, seemingly no matter what.

But here are the issues at play from Monday night's appearance.

NFL Referees, Officials, And Rules Analysts Can Be -- And Often Are -- Wrong

The thing about this one is Anderson ... seems to be right? Obviously, there's some gray area at play, and there's room for disagreement. But quarterbacks often spike the ball into the turf somewhat close to blocking running backs behind the line of scrimmage, and it never results in a flag. (Tom Brady, who I would argue was the most persecuted intentional grounding QB in the history of the game, did this all the time and even he never got flagged for it.)

Yet Parry thought it should have been intentional grounding. One night earlier, NBC's rules analyst Terry McAulay also disagreed with a non-call for intentional grounding in the Bears-Chargers game. That instance was a similar but much more egregious case than Monday's, with Justin Herbert throwing "in the vicinity" of Austin Ekeler, who was in no position to even pretend to be a receiver on the play. Ekeler was behind Herbert as the pass sailed to the turf.

Referee Brad Rogers' crew briefly huddled after that one before ruling it to just be an incomplete pass. Then McAulay got on the broadcast and said, "Yeah, Cris, that's clearly intentional grounding," McAulay stated emphatically. "He's not -- Ekeler's not in the vicinity of that pass. This is absolutely intentional grounding."

In that case, referee Brad Rogers was wrong, rules analyst Terry McAulay was right, and Walt Anderson didn't hop on the broadcast to weigh in.

On Monday night, it seemed like referee Clete Blakeman was right, rules analyst John Parry was wrong, and Walt Anderson was right.

You see the problem here, yes? Rules are black-and-white, but they're always interpreted in different ways. And the "experts" often have disagreements over how to interpret those rules.

The end result is confusion. And when a rules analyst is incorrect on TV, it does often shape public opinion in a way that is very difficult to undo. Considering Anderson's history of offering some creative explanations for calls on the field, his inclusion in game broadcasts to try to correct rules analysts will surely lead to even more puzzled football viewers after questionable calls are made. 

Walt Anderson Isn't Great At Explaining Things

Not to pick on the man, but if you're going to be a front-facing employee of a multi-billion dollar sports league that is in business with seemingly every sportsbook in the country, then you should be clear, concise, and unassailable in your explanations.

Anderson doesn't really fit the bill in that regard.

Anderson once stated in a pool report after a playoff game that this ball was caught before the whistle had been blown:

Most of us have eyes and ears, but Anderson's explanations sometimes disregard both facts.

Back when Anderson was a referee, he determined that this was not roughing the kicker:

"I just didn't feel like the actions and the contact, because we were shutting the play down, warranted a foul," Anderson said that night. "That's what we're looking at. Does the contact rise to the level where we feel like it was clearly avoidable, and rose to the level of a personal foul?" 

That's the man the NFL put in charge of officiating. Unsurprisingly, his "explanations" often come across more as cover for the on-field officials' mistakes.

(Credit to Anderson, though, because he did once admit that the replay official in Buffalo should have stopped a game last year against Minnesota. Anderson failed to explain how the officiating crew missed 12 men on defense in that same game, but we did get one admission.)  

The Precedent Is Set -- And What If The On-Field Officials Are Wrong?

The biggest thing of all, really, is that Anderson has now set a precedent. If there's confusion about a call, he can easily pop on to the broadcast and explain it.

Again, in this instance, Anderson was more right than wrong. But what if the on-field official is wrong, and the rules analyst is right? Will Anderson step in front of the camera and admit to millions of fans that the referee on the field screwed up? Admitting fault hasn't been his forte during his tenure running the officials, and that's when he's interviewed off-camera, after games. A live-television interview could make it difficult for Anderson to defend calls that were obviously missed. (Joe Buck's response of "We'll leave it at that" on Monday night makes one wonder if the appearance came with the strict edict of having no follow-up questions.)

By appearing on Monday Night Football to defend a call made by the on-field officials, Anderson set a precedent that he is available to comment on in-game officiating decisions. If there's a questionable or flat-out incorrect call in a nationally televised game -- and surely, with the state of NFL officiating being what it is, we won't have to wait long for such an instance to arise -- and Anderson doesn't join the broadcast to offer up an explanation? Then we'll be left to draw our own conclusions about why.

The NFL opened this door by putting Anderson on Monday night's broadcast. There's now a lot riding on whether this was an odd one-time decision or whether it will become a regular occurrence. 

You can email Michael Hurley or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.