Referee Explains N’Keal Harry’s Non-Touchdown Call In Patriots-Chiefs Game

The New England Patriots made a few mistakes in the game against the Kansas City Chiefs. They did wrong on several levels, and Sunday’s game was a failure for Tom Brady’s team. New England was abysmal on third down, converting two of the 12 attempts. The team couldn’t score more than seven points in the first half, and their opponents stacked 20. Referees didn’t do the Patriots a favor at all. Head official Jerome Boger had an explanation of the most talked-about touchdown of the game.

The missed N’Keal Harry touchdown was the call that attracted everyone’s attention in the Patriots’ 23-16 loss.

On a first-and-15 play with about 13 minutes left of the fourth quarter, TB12 completed a pass to the Harry, who rushed upfield along the sideline and was able to cross the goal line for a score. According to officials, Harry stepped out of bounds at the 3-yard-line, but the replay showed that there is a different story behind this play. The play wasn’t called a touchdown, so it wasn’t a candidate for automatic review. Brady’s team had no challenges left, and they were out of luck on the rookie’s missed touchdown.   

“I thought it was a touchdown,” said Harry. “I’m pretty sure everyone else saw it was a touchdown. It’s something that is out of our control, out of my control.” 

New England settled for three points on that drive to make it a one-score game. This is actually everything they could do to save the game.

The opinion of the referee

Referee Boger talked to a pool reporter about the call. He said, “What led to it was the covering official on the wing was blocked out by defenders. The downfield official who was on the goal line and looking back toward the field of play had that he stepped out at the three-yard line. So, they got together and conferred on that. The final ruling was that he was out of bounds at the three-yard line.”

Calling this play a touchdown to initiate an automatic review would have been a savvy decision by referees. However, Boger dismissed this notion.

“Those two officials who were covering it, they look at it in real time,” he said. “This case was unique in that the guy who would have ruled touchdown had him short. So maybe if that ruling official on the goal line had a touchdown, we could have gotten into that, but he thought that that guy stepped out of bounds. The goal line wasn’t in the play.”

Of course, this isn’t the main reason the Patriots fell to 10-3 on the regular season, but we do believe referees should have called this touchdown.

The New England Patriots may be disappointed by this loss, but it looks like they couldn’t do a lot to save the game. The first half was terrible, and the second was even worse. Too many mistakes, too many missed moves. Head coach Bill Belichick will have to change his game planning. It wasn’t up to him do. Maybe the Chiefs were too much for TB12 and his teammates.