NFLs rules analyst pressed over controversial Bills interception: Dont want to hear from Tony Romo

Former head coach Steve Mariucci made sure to push NFL rules analyst Walt Anderson.He wanted to know who made the call on the controversial interception in overtime of the Bills-Broncos game Saturday in the divisional round, when Brandin Cooks appeared to initially catch the ball before Ja’Quan McMillan took possession away for an interception.And Mariucci, during Anderson’s weekly segment on NFL Network, wanted to know why fans — both in attendance and watching on television — didn’t hear from referee Carl Cheffers himself.“You have to realize every play behind the scenes is being reviewed by multiple people,” Anderson said when Mariucci pushed him about Cheffers.“They’re looking at all these angles.

And part of the guidelines that the league has established is when replay, you have a ruling on the field, and when replay has all of these angles to take a look and see was the ruling on the field wrong or was the ruling on the field correct, and if you can confirm that the ruling on the field was correct, they really want to move the game along and they don’t want to have unnecessary stoppages. “I understand, I get people’s point that, ‘Well, it’d been good to get a little more explanation from that standpoint,’ but I personally thought that really CBS did a pretty good job with their analysts with explaining why it was not a completed catch and was in fact an interception.”Mariucci then responded that he wanted to hear from Cheffers — and that “I didn’t want to hear from Tony Romo.”With the Bills facing a second-and-11 from their own 38-yard line near the eight-minute mark of overtime, Josh Allen floated a ball down the field for Cooks, who, if he completed the catch, would’ve positioned Buffalo for a potential game-winning field goal.Instead, when Cooks hit the ground, the ball became loose, Anderson said during his segment.“By definition, that would be normally an incomplete pass if it comes out and hits the ground,”...