Dean Blandino, the NFL's vice president of officiating, said Friday that officials made the correct call after reviewing Martavis Bryant’s acrobatic touchdown catch in the third quarter of the Steelers' wild-card win over the Bengals — even though he personally disagreed with the initial call.
“The basic premise of replay, since its inception, the call on the field is presumed correct, unless we have indisputable visual evidence that it is incorrect. Then we can make a change,” Blandino said after issuing his weekly officiating report, which covered several topics from last weekend's games. “I don’t think this is a catch. If I just had a blank slate and I could say, 'Do you think this is a catch or not a catch?’, I would say ‘no catch.’ But the ruling on the field was a catch. And we have to see clear and obvious evidence that it was not a catch.”
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That wasn’t the only controversial play in the game. In a play that riled the Bengals, Steelers linebacker Ryan Shazier leveled running back Giovani Bernard with helmet-to-helmet contact after Bernard made a catch. Bernard suffered a concussion on the play.
Shazier was not penalized or fined for the play.
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Blandino said that while the hit involved helmet-to-helmet contact, there are several criteria the league looks at in determining whether such a hit is legal.
“The first thing we have to consider (is), is Bernard a defenseless player at the time of contact?” Blandino said. “If he is still a receiver attempting to catch that pass, then he is defenseless and gets defenseless player protection. You cannot hit him in the head and neck area. If he has established himself as a runner … then he can be contacted in the head.
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“If you watch the play, (Bernard is) going to take several steps, turn and become a runner. So he is not a defenseless player at the time of contact.”
The second element officials look at, said Blandino, is the angle of contact. A defensive player must line up another player head-on to establish intent to commit a helmet-to-helmet blow.
He said that because Shazier and Bernard were approaching each other from different angles, the league’s "crown of the helmet" rule does not apply.