Speaking of Network Cream Dreams joining us now on the Freak Hotline. It's NFL on Fox Rules Analyst and other. I mean, he's done so much you can't just put a blanket statement on this guy. This guy has got many titles, but NFL on Fox Rules Analyst Dean Blandino, Hello Dean, how are you? Hey? Guys, And that's the best introduction I've ever had at Network Cream Dream That's amazing. That's how you got hired, right. I think they were like, hey, we know, like we got Pereira
and he's he's killing and also hope he gets well soon. But let's let's really raise the sex appeal here. Yeah, exactly, exactly, And that was a great I watched the end of the game, KP, and your description was more exciting than the actual end of the game. Oh, thank you. Well that's the power of radio. But and for you, it was ten o'clock, not a midnight for us who have to wake up at four am. Oh I never would have stayed out if I was on Central Time. No way, I'm asleep. Yeah, that's kind of a bad
start time east Coat. This would have been one am finish. Well, thanks for getting up it's tough for us to get West Coast guests on the show because you know, our show ends in forty five minutes where it's eight am where you are. So thank you for getting up and and responding to me. This happens Saturday night. Obviously, dive in. We tried to lay it out as basic as possible a couple hours ago. You did the refs did did almost don't be mean to Brad Allen, But did the ref
just get confused and mess up? Like? What is your I guess description of what happened? I think there's a couple of things. But before the game, you know, the officials will go to each locker room, two officials. Ninety minutes before the game, we'll go to each locker room, see the head coach, look if they have any questions. Do you have
any trick plays, any gadgets that we need to know about? And so, you know, the Lions told Brett the two officials that we're going to have seventy committed report from time to time we might have a tackle eligible play, just so the officials are aware of what's happening. And I think with that situation, I think there was a couple of things. Sixty eight is on the end of the line. He's the one obviously that catches the past. He has to report. The lines aren't going to run that play without
sixty eight reporting. It's the whole play depends on that. But I think what they did is they kind of got a little bit cute where they had not just not just Decker, but Tonay Sewell and then Skipper come on to
the field and then go to the referee. So there were two offensive linemen in front of Brett Allen and then seventies coming onto the field and almost like kind of the guys who was really reporting, And I think Brad Allen just assumed that it was seventy because he had done it during the game earlier,
and so Brad went too fast assume that that seventy was reporting. The Lions kind of try to disguise it, and it just created this confusion, and Brett Allen announced seventy, told the defense seventy was eligible, and then obviously when once sixty eight catches a pass and to the officials he hasn't reported, that becomes a foul, and now where you know, And that's basically what happened. So basically, in the Lions' efforts to deceive the Dallas defense,
they ended up deceiving the officiating crew. And I think Dan Campbell and his press conference yesterday admitted as much. Yeah, and with no timeouts left, they don't they can't, you know, do anything to reset that. And I believe the eligibility number had been announced over the PA system, So at that point it's kind of like, well, what are you going to do?
You know, I think that's exactly right now. I'm not saying that there isn't There isn't some responsibility on the official side, right, don't you can't go too fast. Look, it's a two point try. It's basically for the game. The clock isn't running. Don't assume anything. Just make sure. Okay, who's eligible? Sixty eight are you reporting? It's seventy reporting? And I think just kind of went into more of like an auto auto drive mode. Seventy had reported earlier. Okay, here he comes,
and the Lions kind of, you know, I get it. They you know, they they're trying to trick play. That's the whole point. They want to trick the defense, but unfortunately they trick the referee. Okay, so does it? Can you walk me through the operation of By the way, this is NFL on Fox Rules analyst Dean Blandino joining us. Now, nice reset, Katie. Yeah, you know, just trying to hit all the benchmarks, you know, the can you walk me through the operation of
this? So? Or maybe I have a foggy memory here? Is it common when a player reports that you might hear the referee on the crowd mic, you know, or on his microphone say, and if he says that number seventy had reported that, maybe everyone would have known, and maybe the Lions could have been like, no, that's not what happened. Or is that just heat of the moment two point conversion for a win? Crowd noise like what happens there? No, it is. So the the protocol is
the player. The first time the player comes in and he's gonna he's gonna play a position that he's not eligible to play. So sixty eight comes into the game says I'm going to play. I'm gonna be eligible. The referee will make that announcement, and and and and bred Allen did there there's it didn't. I don't think it showed up on the broadcast, But I have seen some videos on social media where you could hear it. Yep, the
Spanish broadcast at it. Yeah, and a lot of times in the stadium it's hard to hear obviously, that's you know, he got Crawden rage, you got all these things. But he did announce it, and that is the proper protocol. And then at that point, you know, if the Lions recognize that but they're out of time out, certainly they could they could say, hey, wait a minute, no it's not. But now you've kind of now so now it's going to create a delay. You might end
up getting a delay of game. There's a lot of factors. Once once kind of the the you know, the seventy had had been announced, it was tough to kind of go back. Okay, so and the Lions probably couldn't have even I mean, if it was announced whatever, the lines are probably just trying to call the play and no one is even thinking, hey they just announced that. The wrong guy reported. I mean, is because I don't know, maybe maybe it's as loud as it was. Maybe that's
fine, and that's a tough spot. I guess the ref is in, but man, you just want you know, from the referee perspective, the referee thought, seventy, we're going normal, normal mechanics. Seventy is the eligible player with the ineligible number. And you know, maybe the lines didn't maybe stick in here the announcement, or they just kind of, like you said, they're getting ready to run the play and it just got by them.
And to make it even more wacky, if seventy had been the guy that reported as an eligible receiver, he was lined up illegally to be an eligible receiver. Correct, exactly right. There's if if seventy reports, there's there's there's three fouls on the play, there's there's an illegal formation, there's an eligible downfield on sixty eight, and there's illegal touching on sixty eight. It doesn't look from the line's perspective, I get it because we're not seventy
is not going to report because it just makes the whole play void. It doesn't, It doesn't work. There's seventy reports at sixty eight doesn't. But I think in that in that attempt to kind of disguise it, the referee assumed it was seventy. And now you know, now we're talking about it