There was endless talk in the preseason about how the league's increased focus on illegal contact and pass interference penalties was going to turn the game into a circus of yellow flags - inhibiting excitement and grinding the pace of play to a halt.
Six weeks into the season, there has been no noticeable difference in the amount of flags thrown.
In fact, in last night's game between the Jets and Patriots, the exact opposite seemed to happen - the question of actual active intervention on the part of the officials to keep a team from subjecting themselves to penalization arose at the most critical juncture.
At the end of last night's Thursday night football game between the New England Patriots and the New York Jets, the Jets attempted a last-second, desperation 58-yard field goal. The Patriots were ahead 27-25 at the time, and Nick Folk's kick, had it flown true, would have given the Jets the lead, and presumably, the game.
Instead, Patriots' defensive end Chris Jones flew around the right side of the line, blocked the kick, and sealed the victory for New England. The Jets were forced to slink, tail between their legs, back to New York with a 1-6 record and a growing certainty that their season is all but lost.
After several viewings of the longshot attempt though, which you can see here, something began to stick out.
Just before the snap, Patriots' linebacker Dont'a Hightower moves forward toward the line of scrimmage and into the 'A' gap over Jets' long snapper Tanner Purdum - which is an infraction and cause for a five-yard penalty.
According to Rule 9-1-3(a), Hightower's miscalculation would have called for a five-yard penalty for illegal formation: "When Team A presents a punt, field-goal, or Try Kick formation, a Team B player, who is within one yard of the line of scrimmage, must have his entire body outside the snapper's shoulder pads at the snap."
A five-yard penalty would have given the Jets a more manageable 53-yard field goal attempt and drastically increased their chances of winning the game. Folk has successfully kicked five field goals in his career from 53 yards or greater, and had been a perfect 13-for-13 on the season prior to Thursday night.
But mere moments before the snap, the official steps forward and grabs Hightower by the arm, seemingly in an attempt to move the Patriot linebacker from his spot.
Hightower quickly shifts to a safer position outside Purdum's shoulder pads, the Patriots blocked the kick, and the game ended in heartbreaking fashion for the Jets.
In a response to the incident this morning, Dean Blandino, the NFL's vice president of officiating, claimed that the umpire was simply employing a standard officiating mechanic.
"We call it preventative officiating," Blandino said. "Because it's a player safety rule we're trying to avoid a situation before it happens, so the umpires will get in there and move that player out of there. More often you see it when a player is in a three-point stance and he's down on the line of scrimmage, you'll see the umpire tap the player to move him out of that, because we have to be outside the framework of the center."
