There were no fines from last Sunday’s Steelers-Falcons game, but there should have been at least one. Falcons edge rusher Matthew Judon delivered a late hit on wide receiver George Pickens, which was not penalized.
Surprisingly, the league office did not fine Judon for this infraction. He clearly hit George Pickens late, it was also from behind. I’m not sure how the league missed this, especially with player safety supposedly being a top priority for the NFL.
There was also a missed facemask penalty on Falcons safety Jessie Bates III during the game, as the All-Pro safety blatantly ripped Steelers running back Najee Harris’ helmet off. That arguably could have been a fine, as well. But that wasn’t as egregious as the behind the back hit from Judon on Pickens.
To say the least, the officials were atrocious in the Steelers-Falcons game. Multiple calls were missed or wrongly called. The biggest one was the snafu on T.J. Watt’s strip/sack where he timed the snap perfectly.
Watt said in a post-game interview with Mike Garafolo of NFL Network that an official admitted to him that he blew the call.
“Yeah, especially when the official says he messed it up after the first half. He went in and saw it,” Watt said when asked how it felt to get a game-sealing sack after having two strip sacks negated due to penalties. The second one was nullified because of an illegal hands to the face penalty on cornerback Donte Jackson.
On the following play after the blown call, Cousins completed a 12-yard touchdown pass to tight end Kyle Pitts to give the Falcons a 10-6 lead late in the second quarter. It was a big swing in momentum.
A still shot clearly showed that Watt wasn’t in the neutral zone when the ball was snapped.
Watt was relieved to see that there was no yellow flag on the turf after his game-sealing sack on the final play of the game.
“I think that was one of the first times in my life I had a (walk-off sack), so I had to take a bow,” Watt said. “I had to make sure there were no flags because of the other two.”
