Feely: Should have been penalty on Wagner, Catanzaro should have made OT kick
Oct 24, 2016, 10:58 AM
Arizona Cardinals kicker Chandler Catanzaro (7) has his field goal attempt blocked as Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman (25) looks on during the first half of a football game, Sunday, Oct. 23, 2016, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
The Arizona Cardinals and Seattle Seahawks played to a 6-6 tie Sunday night, but not without some controversy.
According to Cardinals coach Bruce Arians, the Seahawks got some breaks when penalty flags were not thrown after linebacker Bobby Wagner leaped over Cardinals center Aaron Brewer to block a second-quarter field goal attempt or when he did the same thing on Chandler Catanzaro’s missed attempt in overtime.
According to the NFL rule book, it is illegal for a player to use leverage by jumping or standing on a teammate or opponent to block a kick, as well as place a hand or hands on a teammate or opponent to gain additional height in the block or attempt to block a kick.
There is also supposed to be a flag for clearly running forward and leaping in an obvious attempt to block a field goal, unless the leaping player was originally lined up within one yard of the line of scrimmage when the ball was snapped.
A total of 16 penalties were accepted — and a few others were not — yet none were called on Wagner. But should some have been?
Former Cardinals kicker Jay Feely thinks so:
To me this is leverage
Left hand on teammate
Right hand on opponent.
Using leverage for balance. It's not 'incidental' pic.twitter.com/szVbOm2tSn— Jay Feely (@jayfeely) October 24, 2016
Feely, who played in the NFL 12 seasons for five different teams and is now an analyst for CBS Sports, joined Doug and Wolf on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM Monday morning and talked about where he thinks the officials went wrong.
“I saw two different plays,” Feely explained. “On the blocked field goal, when he jumps over the center and possibly grazes him with his foot as he goes over, that to me is not in any way leverage because it can be incidental, and that’s written in the rules that it can be incidental contact, and that’s how I look at the blocked field goal.
“When you look at the field goal that Chandler Catanzaro missed…Wagner has his left hand on his teammate, his right hand on his opponent as he’s going over. He didn’t do that on the first one. So to me, that’s leverage because his hands are out there for balance as he’s going over.”
Feely said he was in a meeting with Dean Blandino, the NFL’s senior vice president of officiating, before the season, and these rules were explained. And after the blocked field goal, where Cardinals coach Bruce Arians was visibly upset and even burned a timeout looking to challenge, he tweeted:
In #SEAvsAZ you have to land on the player for it to be a foul. The block was legal.
— Dean Blandino (@DeanBlandino) October 24, 2016
There has been nothing said about what happened on the OT miss, though, and it’s possible the officials missed one there.
Feely said he texted with Blandino Sunday night, and sent him the photos he took that would indicate Wagner committed a penalty.
“He said, ‘I’ve got to go back tomorrow and look at the film, I’ll get back to you,'” Feely said.
Cardinals coach Bruce Arians will likely get an explanation, too, though it’s unlikely it will satisfy him in any way. Following the game, he explained that he felt Wagner touched Brewer on the block and should have been flagged for it, and then did the same thing in overtime.
“He definitely touched him,” he said. “I’m sure I’ll talk to the league and we’ll get some kind of explanation that is all [expletive], like normal.”
Whether Wagner should have been called for a penalty or not is moot in that it was not a reviewable play. The rule itself, Feely said, is not clear, as it allows incidental contact but not other kinds.
“It’s so hard,” Feely said. “Just be declarative. Say you literally can’t touch if you’re going to jump over, or if you land in any way from a yard off the ball, and you land in any way, it’s a penalty or it’s not. When you leave it vague, then it’s up for interpretation, and fans are mad either way.”
The potential for a missed penalty notwithstanding, had Catanzaro made the kick in overtime it would all be a footnote in a game the Cardinals managed to win. Feely believes the third-year pro was visibly impacted by Wagner.
“It was because of the block earlier,” Feely said of where Catanzaro went wrong. “If you watch him, his head jerks up early. Your head is supposed to stay down — it keeps your shoulders down, your chest down, allows your hips to stay square — and the ball will come off exactly down your target line. When you pick your head up, your chest comes up, it pulls you across the ball, you hook it.
“I think it was because of the block earlier, and you’re looking to see did I get it past him, did he block it again, instead of focusing on your fundamentals and staying down and trusting yourself, you’re peaking, you’re coming up early, and you’re looking early. You can see his head come up and his chest pull, and he yanks the ball.”
Feely pointed out how in Catanzaro’s career, he has a better percentage kicking from the right hashmark compared the left, and wondered why, even though it was a short kick, the Cardinals set him up on the left side.
“So, when you have a game-winner, even though it’s a short game-winner, why do you have the ball on the left hash,” he opined. “The second thing, when you look at Chandler Catanzaro, he’s struggled with fourth quarter kicks within one score in the last five minutes.”
Feely noted how he did a 49ers game earlier this season and their kicker, Phil Dawson, converts on 94 percent of those types of kicks, whereas entering Sunday night Catanzaro was at 66 percent. He’s now added another miss to the list.
After the game, Catanzaro was like everyone else in that he was at a loss for what happened. He said Wagner’s presence did not impact his mindset, and that it did not matter which hash he was kicking from.
“Shouldn’t miss that in this league,” he said of the 24-yard attempt. “No excuse.”
Feely, who attempted his fair share of important kicks in his career, agrees, though with a caveat.
“But when I’m talking about a game-winning kick, I would think about those numbers, If I were a coach,” he said. “I would know whether or not my kicker is better on the left hash than he is on the right hash, and I would put the ball on the hash that is going to help him succeed the most.”
