Facemask Penalty Or Not? NFL Community Debates Yet Another Lions Ending

By Ashley Scoby
@AshleyScoby

Another day, another controversial officiating decision during a Lions game.

This time, the debate doesn't center around Calvin Johnson, or what a catch technically is. Instead it's a facemask penalty on Devin Taylor that has Lions fans up in arms and NFL fans hotly debating if the Packers' untimed down that resulted in a Hail Mary touchdown should have even happened.

Dean Blandino, the NFL's vice president of officiating, tweeted almost immediately after the game that the officials were justified in making that call, especially at full game speed.

Jim Daopoulos, a former supervisor of NFL officials and current rules analyst for ESPN, disagreed.

As written in the NFL rule book, "no player shall twist, turn or pull the facemask of an opponent in any direction."

Here's another look at the moment where Taylor gets his hands on Aaron Rodgers. His hand flies to Rodgers' face, but Taylor's thumb grazes the inside of the face mask before quickly slipping to Rodgers' shoulder pad. Rodgers' head does turn to the side, but it's difficult to tell how much of that was caused by Taylor's thumb.

Both Taylor and Lions head coach Jim Caldwell disagreed with the call.

"I knew I grabbed his collarbone, shoulder pad," Taylor said. "Whatever the ref saw, he called facemask. There's nothing I could do about it, just keep playing until the next down."

"Didn't think it was," Caldwell said of the penalty that enabled Rodgers to fire off one final play. "But because you don't think it was or I don't think it was - it was called, so therefore it is and we've just got to find a way to make the play."

• Aaron Rodgers
• National Football League