Dean Blandino spent over 20 years working for the NFL. In 2013, Blandino was named the NFL’s vice president of officiating, meaning he oversaw all NFL officials.
Blandino left the NFL after the 2017 season and signed with FOX Sports as a rules analyst. Essentially, anytime there is a questionable call that involves replay, the game’s announcers will bring in Blandino, or Mike Pereira, to give their opinion on the play. It adds a different perspective for the viewers.
Blandino also does a show with The 33rd Team each week called “Make the Call,” where he discusses some of the controversial calls from the previous week’s games.
By now, you’ve heard about the controversial calls at the end of Washington’s Week 15 loss to the Giants. One call that Blandino discussed was the illegal formation penalty on Commanders wide receiver Terry McLaurin that wiped out a Washington touchdown. McLaurin said after the game, he checked with the official if he was lined up correctly; the official told him to move up and, when he did, signaled he was good.
Video evidence supports McLaurin’s assertion.
Blandino weighed in on the call and sided with McLaurin.
“McLaurin looks at the line of scrimmage official, and this is the deal; you’ll see this throughout every level of football,” Blandino said. “Receivers are taught to look to the line of scrimmage official to establish where the line of scrimmage is.”
That’s interesting. Remember after the game how the head official said it wasn’t their job to help players line up?
“The official and McLaurin do have an exchange, and the official appears to show McLaurin where the line is, and McLaurin does move up,” Blandino states. “He gets sets, the ball is snapped, and the official throws the flag.
When you have that exchange with a player, and we always talk about in this situation, when you have two receivers that are split out wide, we just want to see a slight stagger. We call it a blade of grass philosophy. And if they’re not directly on the same line, and one is a little bit forward, and one is a little bit back, we don’t want to call that. There’s no advantage; the defense knows that both of those players are eligible players.”
Finally, Blandino ends it with this statement:
“I don’t care if it’s in the first quarter or the fourth quarter, it’s too technical. It’s not a foul for what McLaurin did.”
"I don't care if it's in the first quarter or the fourth quarter, it's too technical. It's not a foul for what McLaurin did."
Our #NFL rules analyst @DeanBlandino breaks down the highly controversial penalty on @TheTerry_25 that negated a #Commanders TD late in the game pic.twitter.com/C6QU4DF7wf
— The 33rd Team (@The33rdTeamFB) December 19, 2022
Washington would have scored the touchdown and gone for the two-point conversion if this had not been called. Two plays later, wide receiver Curtis Samuel was mauled in the end zone, and the officials used their judgment [insert joke here] to keep the flag in their pocket.
