Veteran NFL referee Tony Corrente has the rarity of getting to officiate in the same stadium for the second week in a row.
Corrente and his crew have been assigned to this Sunday’s Seattle Seahawks at New York Giants matchup, one week after the controversial New England Patriots at New York Jets game. As a refresher, Jets TE Austin Seferian-Jenkins originally was ruled to have scored a touchdown about midway through the 4th quarter, but when the play was reviewed, Seferian-Jenkins was seen clearly fumbling the ball, and Corrente announced to an irate Jets fanbase that Seferian-Jenkins lost possession out of the end zone, therefore making it a touchback.
It should be noted that the final decision was made by NFL senior vice president of officiating Al Riveron. Either way, in the post-game referee’s report, Corrente declared that this was a clear call to make:
“He lost the ball. It came out of his control as he was almost to the ground,” Corrente said. “He re-grasps the ball and by rule, now he has to complete the process of a recovery which means he has to survive the ground again. So in recovering it, he recovered, hit the knee, started to roll and the ball came out a second time. So the ball started to move in his hands this way ... he’s not out of bounds in the end zone, which now created a touchback. So he didn’t survive the recovery and didn’t survive the ground during the recovery is what happened here.
“It was a pretty quick determination. It was pretty obvious.”
A Tony Corrente crew under fire over a goal line fumble that’s ruled a touchback? Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah, the “illegal bat” controversy from 2015.
Now for something a little different, Corrente’s team has been quite flag-happy this season. Thus far, he’s averaged 15.8 penalties called per game, roughly two more than the league-average. If you’re going to get on Corrente’s case over last week, it’s probably more appropriate to voice your complaints towards Riveron and the NFL’s rulebook.
If you ask me, I consider it a good thing that Corrente is on Seahawks-Giants, because if there’s any team that knows how to force goal-line fumbles and turn them into touchbacks, it’s Seattle.