Opinion: CFL officials, command centre blow it with disgraceful missed fumble

Photo courtesy: Scott Grant/CFLPhotoArchive.com

If there’s one thing you know about me and my work on this website, it’s that I don’t like going after officials.

Despite a bit of a rough go at times, I do believe that the CFL has some of the best officials in the world and we’ll be reminded of such in a few weeks when the NFL and NCAA seasons begin. Their budgets are astronomically larger but their officiating is exponentially worse.

It’s also extremely difficult to officiate a sport in real time. Things happen fast, mistakes are made. We all understand that.

That’s where the video review is supposed to step in and get things right.

The keyword being “supposed to.”

What happened on Friday night in the game between the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and Montreal Alouettes was a complete disgrace and one of the worst examples of video review I can remember in sports.

At the 5:29 mark of the second quarter, Ticats’ pivot Bo Levi Mitchell completed a pass to fullback James Tuck, who fumbled at the end of play before the ball was recovered by the Alouettes.

At least, that’s how it looked to essentially everyone watching.

The problem? The official near the play blew the play dead early thinking that Tuck was down by contact. In fact, he clearly was nowhere near down before losing control of the ball.

OK, cool, those mistakes happen. Let’s head to the video review.

After review by the command centre, the ruling on the field stood. Though there was a fumble, they deemed there wasn’t a clear recovery to override the whistle.

Alouettes’ head coach Jason Maas was audibly upset on the broadcast and, frankly, I don’t blame him.

In fairness to the command centre, when you look back at the play, Wesley Sutton, who had the first shot at recovering the ball, didn’t have complete control when he initially fell on it. So, perhaps that’s enough to force the command centre to determine the Alouettes did not have an immediate recovery.

However, there wasn’t a Ticats player anywhere in sight. The extra second — at most — that it took for the Alouettes to recover the ball completely wouldn’t have made a difference. This was obviously going to be the Als’ ball.

I understand the command centre is bound by some pretty black-and-white rules, usually for good reasons, but sometimes common sense needs to prevail. This was clearly one of those times.

If a play that was that clear and obvious can’t be overturned, then what are we doing here? It was the latest in a slew of bizarre calls that have plagued the league in recent weeks.

Fortunately, the missed call didn’t cost Montreal any points, as their defence held firm for the stop. They also secured a victory, knocking off the Tabbies 33-16. However, neither of those things excuses one of the most egregious calls in CFL history.