Mike Pereira Certainly Thinks Something Shady Went On With This Facemask Call

If you’re at all familiar with the NFL, you know Mike Pereira. You know what he does. During Fox broadcasts, Pereira is somewhat invaluable, weighing in on crucial officiating calls throughout the game. He’s become the go-to expert on everything and anything controversial; a bad pass interference call, a guy not completing the process of a catch, and so on and so forth.

His opinion carries some weight, both with fans and media. Which is why there’s a hullabaloo after Pereira accused the NFL of wrongdoing during Monday Night Football.

Here’s the play in question, an obvious grabbing of the facemask by Malik Jackson on A.J. McCarron.

As you can see, the flag wasn’t thrown until well after the play was over. In fact, both teams had already lined up for the next snap. Either head ref Ed Hochuli was unsure about the facemask and wanted to confer with his colleagues or, um, the NFL “called it in” so to speak.

Allow Mike Pereira to strap on his tinfoil hat.

As Pro Football Talk noted in a recent column, the NFL’s VP of officiating Dean Blandino “will communicate with the referee during playoff games.” Was this a test run of sorts?

In Blandino’s own words:

“This does not involve the initiating of a flag or picking up a flag. When there’s a conference on the field, we in New York will not be part of that conference. We will not be listening in, talking to the officials. This is strictly a safety net in the isolated instance that there’s an issue with the administration of the game. It’s just using the technology to have one more resource to get it right. That’s the goal of this. It will not involve penalties and it will not involve communicating with the referee after every play, after penalties are called.”

So, who really knows what went on with this play. A bad year for officiating continues.