Dean Blandino: Why Peyton Manning Was Right & NFL Week 1 Officiating Trends

our weekly guest here on Wednesdays let's bring in Dean whenever we're ready here and we'll talk a little Trends from week one we talked to Dean last week to preview the season Dean how's it going man good how you guys doing not bad doing great we I don't think there's a ton of controversy coming out of week one that's a that seems like a good thing right yeah that's always good you know we like to in officiating we like to ramp up you know let's let's let's get our controversies a little bit later like everybody else we'll kind of wait a little bit it's good you tend to save them for prime time too right so Sunday Night Football Monday Night Football you got to have your contested catches and crazy always when I was when I was the head of officiating at the NFL my I I would say look there's there's three games that I don't want anything to happen in Thursday night Sunday night and Monday night you know let it happen 1:00 on on Sunday in a game that not a lot of people are watching but unfortunately everybody's watching all the time that's the um that's the same strategy Kirk Cousins uses right just don't don't be on prime time just do it do it at 1:00 um any any not notable Trends stats uh coming out of week one well I think you know the league always looks at game time and and so the average game time compared to week one last year was was down we're at 3 hours 2 minutes 58 seconds so the league is always shooting for that magical threeh hour window it's not it's not going to happen we're never going to fit games in under three hours or below unless we drastically change the timing rules but I think they'll look at that the problem though when you look at game time is is plays per game and plays per game the the the average number over time has been somewhere around 155 154 155 plays per game that was significantly down in week one 148 plays per game and that's kind of what you're right that's what you're giving that's what you're selling your fans our our football plays so that number below 150 look small sample size but that's Troublesome if that continues uh points per game pretty good 45.8 that's a that's a healthy number your average margin of Victory 10 10.8 anytime you can get that close to a one- score game that that's that's always the goal but passing yards were down big time 37076 per game which was down about 20 yards from last year week one but but the way and I think we've talked about this week one even into week two and three it feels like extended preseason for everybody because the the ones don't play a lot in the preseason so I think we're going to hopefully see those numbers start to Trend upward as we get into the you know the latter portion of the season um if we go all the way back to the opening game Baltimore Kansas City what did you make of the way that game started with officials really cracking down on Baltimore's offensive line alignment and then not really doing it for the rest of the game certainly Kansas City had a couple of plays where you know Twitter is a wash with people pulling up screenshots of well how come this wasn't called and then but it didn't really that that was kind of it right we made the statement in the first game and then the rest of the games weren't a wash with this wasn't like a giant push all the way through week one yeah it did feel aggressive from that crew you know you this hasn't changed formations haven't changed and if you remember last year week one we were talking about they weren't calling Jaan Taylor you know the right tackle for the Chiefs for being for being too far back um you warn first you know when it's close and then the coach gets the warning the player gets the warning and then typically they correct it to have three in the first quarter was was a lot I thought you know five total in the game I thought at least three of them were probably two Technical and the league the officiating Department even sent out a memo after that to the officials and to the clubs to say hey here's how we're going to officiate this they didn't want the officials to be too technical we didn't see it as much although for for 20 for the whole week there were 22 called which was high compared to last week last year week one there was only 10 so when you have 20 two called in one week um that's a high number I would expect that to come down as well as we as we head into week two and and Beyond um do you I saw some former offensive linemen talking about this what what are what's the official rule for where the tackle can line up and somebody somebody highlighted like Ronnie Stanley's posture or The Stance maybe affecting the official do you think that could be an issue uh for officials to see yeah it could be if the if the lineman is too straight up right and and so the the rule is is pretty pretty simple it's the belt line of the Snapper so you just draw a line through the through the midsection of the Snapper the center and uh you've got to be Breaking part of that plane typically that's going to be the helmet um and uh and if you're too far back and officials are going to look for it look third down third and long obvious passing situations The Tackle is going to try to cheat a little bit um because you're in pass protection and make that end go you know wider around you um so the officials are looking through that Belt Line and then like I said I think they're going to I think they're going to kind of even push that back a little bit because they don't want to be technical but yeah Stanley if he's more straight up um then then he's not catching that Belt Line and that could certainly L lean lead to more calls you want to talk um kickoffs how did the dynamic kickoff how did that look to you or from an officiating sense here in week one I think it looked good you know I think a lot of people we had this unrealistic expectation of returns this was never going to lead to 70 80% returns it just wasn't going to happen when you talk about the the drive start if you're if you're giving up an average of the 29 30 yard line then a lot of teams are just going to kick it through the end zone um and not risk injury not risk anything a big return and give the give the the the opponent the ball in the 30 and I think that's what we saw to some extent um return rate was 32.5% which which was up from last year if you think about the entire year last year it was under 22 and I think the league would be happy I think the league would be happy with a a 30 to 35 return rate I think they'd be I think that's what they thought they were going to get last year when they added the fair catch rule um and it went down so far below that so they felt they needed to make a drastic change this year so you know we saw we saw a kickoff return for a touchdown um it it's it's a football play we're seeing more football plays than we did last year and and I think ultimately that's a good thing but again we don't know what the injury data is going to tell us I think that's going to be a real driver as we get to the end of the season and what they do Beyond 2024 how much of a difference do you think it would have made if they had changed the the Touchback line there was the the talk that that was going to be five yards further and at the last minute they kind of bulked on it um because that would have presumably made a significant difference to the volume of kicks or a return and how much are they interested in that as a concept like how much they want a kick return as often as possible I think they're definitely interested it would have there's no question if you move the ball out to the 35 then less teams are just going to kick it into the end zone and then you're going to have more returns I think like like I think the injury data is going to tell us a lot whether we go to the 35 for 2025 I think if you if you don't have a high rate of injury on this play um then I think they consider it if the injury rate is anywhere near what it was on the traditional kickoff um then I don't think they're going to they're going to want more returns and so I think that's going to be the real driver but no question if you move it out to the 35 less teams are going to less teams are going to be comfortable just kicking it into the end zone because the 35 I mean that's significant in terms of field position to start a drive I want to follow up on one thing that you said earlier about the passing stats being down because I actually I put a tweet out this week about it it was the lowest passing yard total at least since 2010 and last year was second lowest it was the the passing touchdowns just a few few years ago we're at 61 in week 1 it was down at uh 34 35 this week it was the lowest total again since 2010 do you feel like the NFL wants more so QBs are running more that's part of the longer game and shorter plays right do you feel like the NFL at some Point's going to want more passing is going to want like hey go emphasize illegal contact more whatever it might have been in the past yeah no doubt no doubt when you look at the popularity of the NFL and it goes back to one of the most significant rules changes the illegal contact rule change and the mid 70s I mean defenses they were just mauling receivers off the line big defensive backs um Mel blunt those types of guys and the passing game was just stagnant and the game wasn't as popular they opened it up with the illegal contact rule we saw an explosion of passing in the 80s and the game is where it is today so there's no question from an officiating standpoint yes you have to look at are we officiating illegal contact are we officiating defensive holding that contact downfield and you could see something like that if if the competition committee says Hey the correlation between our fouls called are down in these areas and our passing yards are down we're going to have to tighten that up but I think like you said there's other factors beyond officiating you know is it more running is it the the schemes is it the first year quarterbacks those types of things so I think all of it contributes to it but certainly illegal contact and defensive holding is something the competition committee could emphasize if these numbers stay where they are which are like you said historically low so I get the competition committee kind of adapting rules and making adjustments year to year makes a lot of sense is there a conscious um attempt like during the season to manipulate the game with officiating like if we notice something is skewing different than it's been the past few years something's down something's not as good as it normally is is there like an inseason conscious okay let's we're going to change the way we officiate this to try and boost this back up because the game has changed this year for some reason there can be sure you never want to make major changes in season you want to try to be as consistent as possible but certainly if it's something related to to player safety um you might have to make a correction but again if you're not if you're not calling um certain areas of the game to where the rule book and where the competition committee expects it to be called then yeah you can make those Corrections you want to make sure if you are doing those things you communicate that not only to the officials but to the club so everybody's aware of okay they're going to call this they're going to call this tighter or whatever it may be so those things can happen um and again I would expect the the passing yards to go up but but if you look at prev the last couple of Seasons we are not where we were like you said even five six years ago and and that's a big part of the popularity and what makes the game so exciting so it's definitely something that the the league has to continue to look at all right last thing Dean uh Monday Night Football there was a play I noticed immediately and I know pton Manning noticed immediately where Jordan Mason because I I tweeted this thing out and people were looking at the receiver motion and I was like no Jordan Mason's moving before the snap out of the back field moving forward I was joking about CFL motion was this just a missed false start or did the Niners find some kind of edge here no that's a Miss that's a Miss call you can so any any backfield player any player that's that's in the back field um can be in motion but you can't be going toward the line of scrimmage right you can have one player in motion lateral to the line of scrimmage and and he's clearly going forward so you could you could call that illegal motion or if it's quick and abrupt you shut it down and make it a false start so it's a foul I just think the officials missed it it it was so close to the snap but that's not something you know teams are going to try to gain an advantage but that's something the the officials should look at and make sure that they're not not letting teams get away with and then really quick can you explain the rule the the Garrett Wilson play where he stepped out of bounds and his heel hit first and his toe landed out of bounds every Jets fans were complaining about that what's the official rule on that second hate this rule Sam hates it it so much I know so it's it's it's part of it's It's a concept we call it tow heel or heel toe so if you're taking a new a normal step right and there's no drag there's no delay it's just a normal step then the entire foot has to be in Bound so if the heel comes down a split second first inbounds and then in the normal stepping motion the toes come come out come down out of bounds that's out of bounds and that's there to to for the officials to consistently officiate that play because in real time it's going to be possible I know we have replay but not every play goes to replay not every play is challenged so for the onfield officials and the consistency that's the that's the philosophy the concept of heel toe toe heel if the entire foot um isn't in bounds it's it's it's out of bounds in that situation my take is if there's if you have at any point if there's a part of your foot down or you know elbow whatever the thing is that's putting you in the end zone if there's a part of it down at any point with none of it out of bounds it's in right it's like a toe if you can tow drag your way to a touchdown you should be able to do it backwards and then when your heel comes down it doesn't matter yeah no I look it's I think Isaiah likely play right I mean that that who would who would not have want me and my son were screaming because we're like hara's going for two this is going to be awesome so yeah and look if these hey maybe if these passing yards don't don't don't get to where they should be maybe they will make that change but that's the rule right now we'll get you on the competition committee Sam the rule of cool too Isaiah likeley was the rule of cool cool play cool two-point conversion coming up just let it I always say that look I say that the rule of cool is a great way of saying it because I look if I've got if you've got a big offensive lineman doing something cool I think we had play a couple you know recovers a fumble and he dives into the end zone and then they overturned it and put him down short of the go I'm like no give him the touchdown well that was the the Robert hunt play right it's the coolest one of the coolest plays in NFL history it doesn't count because can't catch the ball and like Advance it like he he scored one of the greatest touchdowns in NFL history and we just have to pretend it didn't happen he just throw screens to the Right Guard Sam apparently it's against the rules Dean thank you so much appreciate it always love the inside every week man all right guys take care thank you it'll get you on the competition committee sometimes pool and the uh the heel to yeah I think I'm a voice has been missing for some time you get some rugby tackling in there what some uh you'll teach them how to tackle rugby yeah well the tackling would I don't know what I'd do to change NFL tackling I mean I would I I would start thinking about some you know some player safety measures from rugby that we could adapt Rugby's got very strict tackling rules now like helmet you can't do a lot in terms of tackling