Ebenezer Screwed

By Michael Parente

Leon McFadden, right, got flagged for a questionable pass interference penalty on the above play with 40 seconds remaining in Sunday's game at Gillette Stadium, gift-wrapping another come-from-behind win for the Patriots.

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Who knew Roger Goodell celebrated Hanukah?

Before we go any further, no, this does not make up for the Carolina game, the “Sugar Bear” Hamilton roughing-the-passer call in 1976, or Vince McMahon’s Montreal Screwjob in ’97.

This was nothing more than a gift from the Football Gods, one which the Patriots needed desperately Sunday in order to avoid an embarrassing loss at home to the Cleveland Browns, a setback that would’ve stung a whole lot more when coupled with the loss of tight end Rob Gronkowski, who is probably done for the season after suffering a leg injury in the third quarter.

Quick recap:

The Patriots recovered an onside kick at the Cleveland 40 with 1:10 remaining after scoring a touchdown to cut the Browns’ lead to 26-21. Two plays later, Tom Brady desperately heaved a floater toward the end zone trying to hit Josh Boyce in stride. The ball landed just out of Boyce’s reach, but field judge Dyrol Prioleau flagged cornerback Leon McFadden for pass interference, giving the Patriots an automatic first down at the 1-yard line. McFadden, who needed to turn on the jets just to catch up to Boyce, barely touched Brady’s intended target. It was incidental contact at best with McFadden’s outstretched forearm grazing Boyce’s shoulder from behind as the ball sailed through Boyce’s fingertips. There’s more contact on a date with Tim Tebow than there was on this play. Watch it from whichever angle you choose – it’s the same every time.

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Five seconds later, Brady connected with Danny Amendola on a 1-yard touchdown pass, which, at that point, was a foregone conclusion, and the Patriots held on for another improbable win when Billy Cundiff missed a 58-yard as time expired.

This wasn’t karma reimbursing the Patriots for what they felt was a screwjob four weeks ago in Carolina. Without question, the officials missed defensive holding on Luke Kuechly that night and the Patriots should’ve been given one more shot at the end zone from the Carolina 13, but that’s a whole lot different than getting the ball at your opponent’s 1-yard line with 40 seconds and four more tries to break the plane. If the penalty on McFadden wasn’t bad enough, the officials also flagged Jordan Poyer for unnecessary roughness despite legally hitting Julian Edelman with his shoulder in the back of the end zone on the touchdown that trimmed the Browns’ lead to 26-21.

That equally-absurd penalty – 15 yards enforced between downs – allowed the Patriots to kick off from midfield, which made the eventual game-winning drive a lot shorter once they recovered the onside kick at the 40.

Ultimately, we’re not even having this conversation if the Browns don’t botch the onside kick, so shame on them for not being able to prevent something that works less than three percent of the time on onside-kick attempts, but the larger issue here is the ineptitude of the NFL’s competition committee, which meets every offseason to suggest rule changes and still hasn’t found it necessary to make judgment calls such as pass interference reviewable by a coach’s challenge.

If this were college football, where the maximum penalty for defensive pass interference is 15 yards, this would be a moot point, but when you give the opposing team an automatic first down at the spot of the foul, you better make sure you get the call right. If you don’t, the parties who stand to suffer the most from your error in judgment should have the right to challenge the ruling.

This is a no-brainer. There’s no gray area on pass interference. You either interfere, or you don’t, and it’s a lot easier to judge when everything is unfolding in front of you in slow motion. The NFL is too fast and too explosive to expect the naked eye to see everything correctly in real time. That’s why we have replay in the first place. And with quarterbacks and wide receivers benefiting more and more each year from rule changes, making this more of a passers’ league now than it’s ever been, defensive players need something to level the playing field.

The NFL says its ultimate goal is to get it right, yet it continues to ignore the number of ill-timed ticky-tack fouls that have directly affected the outcome of important games through the years. The potential swing in momentum from a pass interference call, whether it’s in the first quarter or the fourth, is too dynamic to leave in the hands of officials. Furthermore, if you let teams challenge pass interference, you also deter quarterbacks with their backs against the wall from desperately heaving the ball 40 yards down the field into traffic in hopes of drawing a gift-wrapped pass interference call. Don’t think for a second that didn’t cross Brady’s mind when he chucked that Hail Mary toward Boyce. Given how quick officials are to call pass interference, why not take a shot?

If you’re worried that expanding the replay rules will lengthen games, give it a rest; if a coach knows he has the option of challenging a potential backbreaking call such as pass interference late in the fourth quarter of a close game, you can be certain he’ll make sure to keep one of his challenges in his back pocket just in case. The games won’t be any longer than they are now. Even if they are, who cares? More football is a good thing, and so is making sure the right team wins.

What’s also lost in all the fervor stemming from this improbable win is the fact the Patriots fell behind by double-digits at the half for the third consecutive week and needed another big second-half surge to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. The defense continues to spring leaks, too, and with Jason Campbell throwing for a career-high 391 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions, perhaps we can finally put to rest the idiotic theory that the Patriots have been allowing a ton of rushing yards lately because they’ve been so focused on stopping the pass. Focusing on the passing game didn’t seem to work when Josh Gordon turned a slant pass into an 80-yard touchdown in the third quarter, nor did it work when he caught a 19-yard pass on 3rd-and-17 midway through the fourth quarter when the Patriots desperately needed a stop and everyone in the stadium knew Campbell was throwing.

The Patriots have critical problems on defense with no reinforcements on the way. They’ve lost the football equivalent of their defensive battery with nose tackle Vince Wilfork, linebacker Jerod Mayo and safety Steven Gregory gone for the season. They’ve made up for it with video-game numbers on offense these past three weeks – a total of 95 points in three games – but with Gronkowski likely out for the rest of the year, it could begin to look like the first half of the season again when the Patriots struggled to put points on the board.

This is going to be a “we’ll see” kind of finish to 2013. The Patriots are clinging to that No. 2 seed in the AFC and can ill afford another loss, especially since the No. 3 seed, Cincinnati, owns the tiebreaker and only trails New England by one game in the conference standings. Watching the Patriots struggle like this against mid-level competition doesn’t bode well for their long-term playoff hopes, especially if they slip to No. 3 in the AFC and have to play twice on the road, where they are just 3-3 this season.

They might need every gift they can get to survive the next three weeks and beyond. Through Goodell, all things are possible.