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Officials Blow Call in Jets-Chargers Tie

Oct. 7, 1964 - There is no such thing as an appeal play in professional football. If there had been, the Jets might have won last Saturday night’s game against the champion Chargers instead of tying, 17-17.

Films of the game, which were shown during the Jets’ weekly luncheon today at Shea Stadium, made it clear that an official failed to see an important bit of action.

With less than a minute to play in the first half, the Jets had driven to the 5-yard line. On the next play, Dick Wood fired a short pass to fullback Bill Mathis deep in the right corner of the end zone and near the sideline.

Emil Kara, the Chargers’ left linebacker, was in front of Mathis and illegally guarding him by waving his arms in front of Mathis’ face to block his view of the ball.

Still, Mathis made the catch, then was pushed out of bounds by Karas. The head linesman, Harry Kessler, was running in on a slant, looking toward the line of scrimmage where he had detected defensive holding. Kessler’s back was to the pass and catch; he never saw the play.

If he had seen the play, the touchdown would have been allowed since Mathis was in bounds when he made the catch. Instead, the holding penalty took preference.

The penalty gave the Jets the ball on the 1-yard line with a first down. There were 2 seconds remaining, and the Jets were trailing, 10-3. On the first play, Mathis dived over his left guard spot into the end zone. Unfortunately, Wood had fumbled the snap from Mike Hudock, the center, so the Jets left the field still trailing. Fortunately, they rallied twice in the second half to gain the tie.

The point that coach Weeb Ewbank made was that there ought to be at least an official timeout so that all the officials could discuss briefly any such play important to scoring in football.

Ewbank then related just such an incident in a Cleveland-Detroit game for the NFL championship.

Bobby Layne, the Lions’ quarterback, took the handoff from center, rolled out, flipped a lateral to another back, then went downfield and caught the forward pass.

Ron Gibbs, one of the best referees in the NFL, and his associates, immediately were aware that some illegality had been committed, but they were not sure what it was.

They called a timeout to talk it over. The chit-chat revealed that Layne, having first handled the ball from center, was no longer an eligible receiver. The play was nullified.

Ewbank believes officials in the AFL ought to be instructed to act in a similar manner.



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© 2024 by Joe Rubenstein

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