It's unfortunate that the awesome spectacle of two heavyweight teams going to battle had to be overshadowed by officials' decisions that, in my opinion, had a very real impact on the outcome of the game- some more than others.
Games move fast and even though we get the benefit of 3-4 replays sometimes, that doesn't mean we saw everything so I'm going to break down the most impactful moments and give my opinion of whether or not the calls were right and how bad the misses were.
Despite the bumpy road that this game traveled in terms of officiating, I'm very appreciative of the officials and the work they do so that we can enjoy the sport we love in this format.
The screenshots and recordings might take a little while to load and unfortunately I haven't tested them on mobile. Let's get into it.
Soft Foul on Tobe Decraene
In the first quarter, Boston goes deep to Tobe Decraene who is tightly guarded by Burnett and has a help defender also coming in from the back side of the play. The disc hangs and turns into a jump ball that is a pretty routine occurrence in this league. As is also routine, bodies collide in the air. Ultimately, the disc is not caught and a foul is awarded. As I watched it live at the game it immediately struck me as an extremely soft call. Nobody contacts the receiver until he's already missed the disc. In fact, Decraene extends his arm to try to create space between himself and the help defender. He wasn't knocked off his line, his hand/ arm are not impeded, and he certainly wasn't stripped. This is about as clean as the defense can possibly be in a scenario like this. Every single end of quarter jump ball has way more contact than this and you will never see a call there. Even the commentators were struggling to find justification for this call and called it an "MVP call"
Result: Boston retains possession and scores on the next throw
Ben Sadok Travel
This one went totally unmentioned on the broadcast and I don't think that anyone on the field noticed at all, which is insane. Sadok receives a low cross field hammer, needing to slide on his backside to make the catch and is ruled out of the end zone. Here is where he came to a stop and stands up. Here he is 3 seconds later, both feet entirely inside the end zone. He ends up throwing a pass that appears to go backwards for a goal from *inside the end zone.* Hard to say that a ten yard travel penalty would have changed the outcome of the point when Boston was converting so well inside the red zone but this is a bad miss because of how easy it should be to get this right. I often complain about how much people complain about travels in this sport, but what the hell is even that.
Result: Boston Goal
Cam Lacy In/ Out Call
Q3, Cam Lacy is tracking down a throw that's trailing out of bounds and has to leave his feet to grab it before it leaves the field. His momentum takes him out of bounds but there is the question of where his first point of contact was. He is ruled in bounds. This is the best freeze frame I could get of the moment he first makes contact with the turf. Maybe if we could download the video and go frame by frame we could get something more conclusive but I don't have the skills or software for that. It's possible that there are a couple frames before this that show his hand further in bounds. This is just the fastest I could click the pause button. It appears that his hand is in bounds but if his fingers are on the paint, it's out. Unfortunately, the fingers aren't visible from this angle so we can't be certain. What is certain is that the referee has an excellent vantage point on it. If they got it wrong, it's hardly an egregious miss given how small the margin is here. After reviewing replay during the broadcast, the commentators came to believe that Lacy was out and stated as much, which surely has an impact on the viewer's opinion.
Result: Minnesota goal
Lukas Ambrose Picked
End of Q3 and Decraene just threw a dart to Thomas Edmonds for a score. The Boston D line goes out to pull but suddenly there are whistles and the coaches and officials are meeting in the middle of the field. I was confused as hell watching live and only found out on the rewatch that a pick had been called. Getting down to the play, it's pretty weak but Edmonds does lead Ambrose through traffic. I don't see Ambrose being greatly impeded by his teammate and I don't blame Boston for not liking it, but I also see why a referee would call it. It's probably enough to draw a call in a club game. Beyond frustrating to let so much time go by before making the call that the next lines have taken the field. Thankfully it doesn't end up mattering much because Boston would still score on the restart.
Josh Klane buzzer beater throw
I didn't even know this was a controversy until rewatching the game and I heard the commentators mention it. At the end of the 3rd quarter, the Boston coaching staff noticed that the clock didn't start immediately when the Wind Chill offense took possession of the disc and they were right. Klane ends up boosting the throw with 0:02 on the clock. I timed how long it took from possession to when the clock does start and got as low as 1.89 seconds and as high as 2.11 seconds. Is that enough to conclusively say that the goal should not have counted? Without fractional timing on the game clock, idk how to make that call. It really comes down to a margin of error that depends on how fast fingers hit buttons which is razor thin and variable from game to game and person to person. This one was really close and is Boston's most legitimate complaint, IMO. Probably should have called it back and replayed the point. Ironically, if they had not called the weak pick, Minnesota would have had more time on the clock.
Result: Minnesota goal
No Foul Call on Peter Boerth
This one has been getting a lot of attention in the aftermath and is definitely going to be polarizing. Orion Cable sends a deep shot to Peter Boerth who is covered by Owen Suleflow. Boerth goes up over Suleflow to high point the disc. Suleflow stays on the ground, impacts Boerth's back/ lower body, and the disc bounces off Boerth's fingertips. Lepler thinks it's a foul. Toner calls it incidental contact. Replay shows Suleflow running into Boerth while he is airborne which is a cut and dry foul, right? What is lost in the analysis of this play on the broadcast is that at the end of his run, Boerth drifts towards the sideline and jumps directly into the path of Suleflow, who is drifting in the direction that the disc is fading, creating a situation where contact was unavoidable for the defender. Given the trajectory and height of the disc, I don't think Suleflow expected Boerth to try to high point this one and maybe was preparing to be boxed out. Regardless, Boerth jumps into his path at the very last second. Lepler adamantly stumps for this one being a foul on the broadcast which I think has a big impact on viewers' opinions.
Result: Boston turnover
Decraene Foul on Suleflow
This one looks bad because it happened right after a play that seemed very similar on the other end and no foul was awarded. Decreane and Suleflow both go up at the same time and Suleflow can't complete the catch. Even if you think this is mutually initiated contact, Suleflow has a pretty good case for a strip.
Result: Minnesota retains possession
Cam Lacy Foul on Orion Cable
This one is a doozy. If there is one call that changed the outcome of the game, this is it. Cam Lacy jumps a swing pass with a huge burst and whether he gets a finger on it, or did enough just by being in the way, Cable doesn't make the catch. Regardless, upon rewatch you can see that Cable adjusts his path to the disc, initiating the contact. Pretty bad look for him to be begging for a foul after that. This is a phenomenal play and ruling it a foul on the defense is awful, in my opinion, and to call it 5+ seconds late from 30 yards behind the play is simply outrageous. The official who called the foul on this play is not even on the screen. The impact on the game from this play was huge. Minnesota was about to go up by 2 in the fourth quarter but instead Boston converts to tie the game.
Result: 2 point swing in Boston's favor
"Phantom" Foul on Noah Coolman
Safe to say that anybody watching the TV feed was wondering what the hell happened here. This one was poorly captured by the broadcast because they were still playing replays of the previous point when it happened. I had the benefit of watching this in-person and can attest that there was definitely a foul. If you were watching on TV, this is what you saw. Just as the feed cuts back to live action, you see Coolman stumble in the stack. The defender on Noah Coolman began to reposition himself just as Coolman starts his cut and gets a foot tangled between Coolman's, tripping him up. The official calls the foul as soon as the disc is down, which is appropriate, but there was a lot of confusion about where he should be awarded the disc which was a bad look and definitely added to the controversy. The commentators are incredulous at this point, which also heightens the sense of controversy for the viewer.
Result: Minnesota ends up turning it over and eventually getting broken
The Low Hits
The fourth quarter featured two low hits on receivers- one by Noah Hanson on Tobe Decraene and one by Tapper(?) on Ellis Newhouse. Hanson was assessed a 20 yard flagrant that was definitely warranted. The one by Boston has been referenced as one of the "gifts" that Minnesota got from the refs because Minnesota was awarded 30 penalty yards even though the hit on Newhouse was not nearly as violent as the one on Decraene. What I think people are missing here is that Boston was assessed a 10 yard common foul *plus* a 20 yard technical for complaining to the refs about the call, which was a trend that had gone on for the entire game and is explicitly within the refs' power under the technical foul rules.
Conclusion
The narrative that it was Boston vs. the refs, as the post game thread indicated, doesn't really hold up to scrutiny. Boston has some legitimate grounds for complaint, particularly the buzzer beater, but even under a microscope it's impossible to say that the calls that didn't go their way were definitively wrong.
On the other hand, the calls that went against Minnesota were REALLY bad and it was easy to see that they were. What's more, those calls directly led to major impacts on the score.
