Klatt on Super Bowl Late Holding Call: Bad Call

He is a media personality. He is in the content creation business. To anyone in that business, if they want to make money, they HAVE to think their opinion matters more than most. That's how they build their stature and continue to get bigger. Additionally, being controversial only helps that from a interest perspective. Look at clowns like Skip Bayless. 

And in his defense on Kansas, they did lose their star QB not long after, which precipitated the tail spin. If Daniels doesn't get hurt, do they beat TCU? If they beat TCU, do we play OSU in the semi? Do we smash them again? An interesting flap of the butterfly's wings...

That reminds me of Herbstreit's trajectory.  I used to like him when he was the new kid trying to cut his teeth.  Now, he can't stop talking even when the play about to snap, his opinions, in his own mind, are just that vital.  

I don’t think it’s his ego. He is being paid to provide his opinion and clearly outlets are seeking his opinion due to his reasoning and perceived credibility…

I value his in game assessment. Especially, late in the game when a big play happens and he explains the set up leading to the outcome 

Counterpoint: In the long run, most 7-5 and 8-4 teams only beat around 2 teams above 0.500. Generally, they beat 2 teams above 0.500, 4 teams below 0.500, and 2 teams at 0.500. They lose to 1 team at or below 0.500, and 3 teams above. That's how they end at 8-4. 

Disagree. There's absolutely no one better at calling the game live (or the post mortems he does on YouTube) than Klatt. Even if you don't agree with every, single thing he says...this guy's fair and on-point. 

It’s extremely rare for an undefeated P5 team to be unranked through 5 weeks, Kansas or not, so his take wasn’t hot, it wasn’t even warm.

"Perhaps --- just perhaps Joel --- " 

Who are you writing to, who writes like that? Your post comes across a bit egocentric and obnoxious as well.

Wendy, Exactly.  Call it the same way - both sides - the entire game.

If you don't call a "tug" on the first play, you don't call it late in the fourth quarter.

Had the officials called similar plays in the first 57 or 58 minutes, I don't think anyone would have an issue with this call.  The key thing is - they didn't.

which is still ridiculous. It was probably a TD if he wasn't slowed out of the break. Plus, how do any of us know that the refs hadn't told the DB to keep his hands off throughout the game? Maybe they had been warning them. 

exactly.  that particular flavor of "defensive holding" could be called at least a dozen times a game.  if you call it early, fine, call it there.

Especially when it was as soft as it was. I mean, yes, it was holding, but it wasn't really egregious. I won't go as far as say that it definitely did not affect the play...but at the same time, if every tug like that was called there would have been another half a dozen penalties earlier. Why wait until the biggest moment in the game to finally set and enforce the standard? 

I don't want players being mugged and interfered with for the sake of "letting them play"...but this play was not that. In fact I don't quite understand the NFL standards of holding...half of the holdings I see called are barely holding. I don't like the standard much in college either (way too much holding is ignored), but I'd much rather err on the side of "let it go" than not, especially when we're talking about a small tug that was a fraction of a second near the beginning of a route. 

This whole debate is stupid...

Says the guy participating in the debate.

Agree. It was going to be a TD. The only way to prevent the TD was to hold. He had to do it. He got called for it as it prevented a TD. I think the game situation actually demanded that the call be made. He had no safety help and the WR was going to have a walk in TD. Stop with the sour grapes. It's a good call.

It was holding, sure, but nowhere near egregious. Come on. Nowhere close. 

For it to be really "egregious" you need joe schmo who knows nothing about the sport seeing it and saying "wow that dude was held". And it would be obvious to see live, not something that requires replay to see where the penalty was. 

These demands for "consistency" are ... honestly, kind of infuriating. For one thing, this one referee wasn't the only one out there. Maybe he wasn't the one who who didn't call the earlier play. Maybe he was consistent. Should he have been watching players that weren't his responsibility on other plays, trying to take his colleagues' positioning into account, before deciding what he should call later on, on players that were his responsibility? How many plays does he have to watch before instituting those same rules for the rest of the game? One? 50?

But that's even kind of theoretical. More significantly, these players are running at full speed, without referees always having the best perspective, and without instant reply. Did you know, while watching the game live, whether there was or wasn't holding? I sure didn't. 

And when they don't throw a flag -- like in that Saints playoff game a few years ago -- they get absolutely roasted for not making the "obvious" call.

If you (or Joel Klatt) want to say that shouldn't have been called, fair enough. Indeed, I personally get aggravated by referees that "guess" about penalties that in the end didn't happen more than I do by referees who miss calls that actually did (like, again, that Saints penalty). 

That's a legitimate point. But "consistency" ... gimme a break. You think that referee would agree that he applied different standards to different parts of the game? Because I bet he would absolutely deny it.

I don't think it was a simple hand check.  It was a jersey hold first, followed by hand checking.  And it was on the targeted receiver.  IMO good call.  And yes, there likely were other instances in the game where tugs and holding should have been called.