Jeff Triplette is my top choice for the most hated official of all time. He has messed up more games then anyone else......yet the NFL continues to employee him.
http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/09/jef...s-game-taunting-extra-point-worst-referee-nfl
Corrections/clarifications: A previous version of this story stated that an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty assessed after kickoff would move the kick to the 50-yard line.
Jeff Triplette, the longtime NFL referee who seems to be at the center of almost every officiating mistake or controversy, almost had another inexplicable screw-up during the Denver Broncos and Detroit Lions game on
Sunday Night Football. It was one of Triplette’s more bizarre calls in a career filled with them because it wasn’t an
innocent, negligent mistake (such as hitting Orlando Brown in the eye with a flag), a case of mind-boggling obtuseness (such as when
he thought BenJarvus Green-Ellis wasn’t touched when falling to the turf for a 2013 touchdown), not keeping up with what’s supposed to be his field (such as
when chains were moved in a Giants-Redskins Monday night game and retroactively put back) or messing up explanations (
overtime rules are difficult to convey, to be fair).
No, this was a simple case of not knowing one of the most common rules in the NFL rulebook, a rule that a majority of football fans know. (It’s not the first time something like this has happened. In 2009, when
Triplette went to the booth to review a play that wasn’t reviewable.)
hat was it this time around? It was a simple, inconsequential call late in the first half, but still one of incomprehensible incompetence. Peyton Manning hit Demaryius Thomas for a deep touchdown pass with time running out in the second quarter. Thomas turned around at the two-yard line to run backward into the end zone and was called for a 15-yard taunting penalty.* By rule, the touchdown stands and the penalty is assessed on the kickoff, the same way as always. But not when Jeff Triplette is wearing the stripes.
After correctly announcing the penalty and how it’d be marked off on the kickoff, Triplette spoke with the Lions bench and announced Detroit wanted the 15 yards to be assessed on the extra point, turning it from a 33-yard XP to a 48-yarder, a no brainer decision for a team, if such a call was legal. The Broncos actually
lineup up for the kick before someone on Triplette’s crew remembered this obvious rule — a dead-ball penalty after a touchdown is assessed on the kickoff — and had it corrected.
Though Jeff Triplette is considered the NFL’s worst referee and
has been called “disgraceful” and “indefensible” by Peter King, a writer not known to take hyperbolic shots, I always figured he still knows 100% more about the NFL rule book than any fan watching at home. It’s like armchair-quarterbacking a coach. They forgot more about football on the flight home than we’ve ever known. But in the case of Triplette, I’m not so sure that’s the case any more. This was as obvious a call as there gets and I’m genuinely fascinated by whether the Lions were trying to pull one over on him.
Here’s the rule, as listed in the
NFL official rulebook:
“
Rule 14, Section 2, Article 3: If a team commits a personal or unsportsmanlike conduct foul, or a palpably unfair act, during a down in which the opponent scores, the penalty is enforced on the succeeding free kick (unless the score resulted from the enforcement).”
Now, as an aside: The NFL rule in question is dumb. Moving the ball to the 20-yard line after an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty is no penalty at all since a majority of kickoffs end in a touchback anyway. A team
should be allowed to take that penalty on the extra point. But there are lots of stupid rules in the NFL rule books and it’s not Jeff Triplette’s job to decide which ones he’s going to enforce.
Anyway, the most baffling part of this whole affair is that Jeff Triplette continues to get high-profile games such as a nationally televised
SNF contest featuring Peyton Manning. Because when he does, everyone is waiting for the monumental mistake. So later in the game, when it was clear that a call that initially ruled Thomas down by contact was actually a fumble, no one at home or in the stadium had any assurance Triplette would get the call right upon review and overturn it.
I’d say this is getting embarrassing for the NFL, but we passed that point about eight years ago.
* It wasn’t clear if the taunting penalty was even correct. High-stepping into the end zone, which is what the viewer saw Thomas do on TV, is not a penalty. That doesn’t mean he didn’t commit another violation that viewers couldn’t see or hear though.
* It wasn’t clear if the taunting penalty was even correct. High-stepping into the end zone, which is what the viewer saw Thomas do on TV, is not a penalty. That doesn’t mean he didn’t commit another violation that
Another good read: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...me-for-the-nfl-to-fire-referee-jeff-triplette
