Carl Johnson, the NFL's vice president of officiating, told Vikings coach Brad Childress on Monday that referee Scott Green made a mistake when he overturned Visanthe Shiancoe's 17-yard diving touchdown catch on review because, in Green's estimation, the ground helped the tight end hold onto the football.
Childress shared this information with the media and, partly because of that, was fined $35,000 by the NFL on Tuesday. Well, Wednesday night Johnson went on the official review segment of "NFL Total Access" on the NFL Network and explained to America that the second-quarter call made in the Vikings' 28-24 loss to the Packers was a bad one.
"One thing we need to know whenever a player is going to the ground, making the catch, [is] firm grasp and control and did we see the ball move?" Johnson said. "Was there a bobble? Was there a loss of control? Did the hand separate from the football? In the referee's judgment, he thought that there was movement, that there was some loss of control. However, as we further assessed the play, we saw that there was not enough to change this call. Therefore, we wish the ruling on the field would have stood as a completed catch. There just wasn't enough to overturn this call." So it was an incorrect call? "Yeah, we would have wished the call on the field would have stood in this instance."
