Speaking of Network Cream Dreams joining us now on the Freak Hotline. It's NFL
on Fox Rules Analyst and other. I mean, he's done so much you
can't just put a blanket statement on this guy. This guy has got many
titles, but NFL on Fox Rules Analyst Dean Blandino, Hello Dean, how
are you? Hey? Guys, And that's the best introduction I've ever had
at Network Cream Dream That's amazing. That's how you got hired, right.
I think they were like, hey, we know, like we got Pereira
and he's he's killing and also hope he gets well soon. But let's let's
really raise the sex appeal here. Yeah, exactly, exactly, And that
was a great I watched the end of the game, KP, and your
description was more exciting than the actual end of the game. Oh, thank
you. Well that's the power of radio. But and for you, it
was ten o'clock, not a midnight for us who have to wake up at
four am. Oh I never would have stayed out if I was on Central
Time. No way, I'm asleep. Yeah, that's kind of a bad
start time east Coat. This would have been one am finish. Well,
thanks for getting up it's tough for us to get West Coast guests on the
show because you know, our show ends in forty five minutes where it's eight
am where you are. So thank you for getting up and and responding to
me. This happens Saturday night. Obviously, dive in. We tried to
lay it out as basic as possible a couple hours ago. You did the
refs did did almost don't be mean to Brad Allen, But did the ref
just get confused and mess up? Like? What is your I guess description
of what happened? I think there's a couple of things. But before the
game, you know, the officials will go to each locker room, two
officials. Ninety minutes before the game, we'll go to each locker room,
see the head coach, look if they have any questions. Do you have
any trick plays, any gadgets that we need to know about? And so,
you know, the Lions told Brett the two officials that we're going to
have seventy committed report from time to time we might have a tackle eligible play,
just so the officials are aware of what's happening. And I think with
that situation, I think there was a couple of things. Sixty eight is
on the end of the line. He's the one obviously that catches the past.
He has to report. The lines aren't going to run that play without
sixty eight reporting. It's the whole play depends on that. But I think
what they did is they kind of got a little bit cute where they had
not just not just Decker, but Tonay Sewell and then Skipper come on to
the field and then go to the referee. So there were two offensive linemen
in front of Brett Allen and then seventies coming onto the field and almost like
kind of the guys who was really reporting, And I think Brad Allen just
assumed that it was seventy because he had done it during the game earlier,
and so Brad went too fast assume that that seventy was reporting. The Lions
kind of try to disguise it, and it just created this confusion, and
Brett Allen announced seventy, told the defense seventy was eligible, and then obviously
when once sixty eight catches a pass and to the officials he hasn't reported,
that becomes a foul, and now where you know, And that's basically what
happened. So basically, in the Lions' efforts to deceive the Dallas defense,
they ended up deceiving the officiating crew. And I think Dan Campbell and his
press conference yesterday admitted as much. Yeah, and with no timeouts left,
they don't they can't, you know, do anything to reset that. And
I believe the eligibility number had been announced over the PA system, So at
that point it's kind of like, well, what are you going to do?
You know, I think that's exactly right now. I'm not saying that
there isn't There isn't some responsibility on the official side, right, don't you
can't go too fast. Look, it's a two point try. It's basically
for the game. The clock isn't running. Don't assume anything. Just make
sure. Okay, who's eligible? Sixty eight are you reporting? It's seventy
reporting? And I think just kind of went into more of like an auto
auto drive mode. Seventy had reported earlier. Okay, here he comes,
and the Lions kind of, you know, I get it. They you
know, they they're trying to trick play. That's the whole point. They
want to trick the defense, but unfortunately they trick the referee. Okay,
so does it? Can you walk me through the operation of By the way,
this is NFL on Fox Rules analyst Dean Blandino joining us. Now,
nice reset, Katie. Yeah, you know, just trying to hit all
the benchmarks, you know, the can you walk me through the operation of
this? So? Or maybe I have a foggy memory here? Is it
common when a player reports that you might hear the referee on the crowd mic,
you know, or on his microphone say, and if he says that
number seventy had reported that, maybe everyone would have known, and maybe the
Lions could have been like, no, that's not what happened. Or is
that just heat of the moment two point conversion for a win? Crowd noise
like what happens there? No, it is. So the the protocol is
the player. The first time the player comes in and he's gonna he's gonna
play a position that he's not eligible to play. So sixty eight comes into
the game says I'm going to play. I'm gonna be eligible. The referee
will make that announcement, and and and and bred Allen did there there's it
didn't. I don't think it showed up on the broadcast, But I have
seen some videos on social media where you could hear it. Yep, the
Spanish broadcast at it. Yeah, and a lot of times in the stadium
it's hard to hear obviously, that's you know, he got Crawden rage,
you got all these things. But he did announce it, and that is
the proper protocol. And then at that point, you know, if the
Lions recognize that but they're out of time out, certainly they could they could
say, hey, wait a minute, no it's not. But now you've
kind of now so now it's going to create a delay. You might end
up getting a delay of game. There's a lot of factors. Once once
kind of the the you know, the seventy had had been announced, it
was tough to kind of go back. Okay, so and the Lions probably
couldn't have even I mean, if it was announced whatever, the lines are
probably just trying to call the play and no one is even thinking, hey
they just announced that. The wrong guy reported. I mean, is because
I don't know, maybe maybe it's as loud as it was. Maybe that's
fine, and that's a tough spot. I guess the ref is in,
but man, you just want you know, from the referee perspective, the
referee thought, seventy, we're going normal, normal mechanics. Seventy is the
eligible player with the ineligible number. And you know, maybe the lines didn't
maybe stick in here the announcement, or they just kind of, like you
said, they're getting ready to run the play and it just got by them.
And to make it even more wacky, if seventy had been the guy
that reported as an eligible receiver, he was lined up illegally to be an
eligible receiver. Correct, exactly right. There's if if seventy reports, there's
there's there's three fouls on the play, there's there's an illegal formation, there's
an eligible downfield on sixty eight, and there's illegal touching on sixty eight.
It doesn't look from the line's perspective, I get it because we're not seventy
is not going to report because it just makes the whole play void. It
doesn't, It doesn't work. There's seventy reports at sixty eight doesn't. But
I think in that in that attempt to kind of disguise it, the referee
assumed it was seventy. And now you know, now we're talking about it