Carl Cheffers Speaks About Holding Penalty In Super Bowl LVII
Eagles Safety James Bradberry was called for holding JuJu Smith-Schuster on the final meaningful drive of Super Bowl LVII. (Twitter/FOX)
NFL Pool Reporter Lindsay Jones of The Ringer sat down with Super Bowl LVII Referee Carl Cheffers regarding the holding penalty on the final drive of Super Bowl LVII.
Bradberry admitted after the game that the refs correctly called holding. At the same time, an important learning point among officials is that you call holding is when it impacts the play. It is possible to call holding on every play, but if the act that would draw a holding penalty doesn’t impact the play, you don’t call it no matter how obvious it is. In this case, the ball was thrown in the direction of JuJu Smith-Schuster, but it was not a catchable ball even if he didn’t get held. Since the holding didn’t impact the play, calling holding is a case of the officials unnecessarily inserting themselves into the gameplay.
At the end of the day, one call does not make or break the game, but at such a critical moment, the Chiefs benefitted from a call that likely should not have been made.
