Minnesota Vikings tight end T.J. Hockenson had a touchdown overturned by a replay review late in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, and he clearly was not happy about it.
Hockenson appeared to catch a touchdown pass from Vikings quarterback Carson Wentz with 2:58 remaining on the clock, but it was taken away from him after a replay review. During his postgame press conference, Hockenson made his feelings very clear as he called the officiating decision “ridiculous.”
“There was nothing to overturn it,” Hockenson said after the game, according to Kevin Seifert of ESPN. “I mean, I was out there. I felt it. Hands under the ball; snag it; and I don’t understand. I don’t basically understand the catch rule at this point. . . . I don’t understand how New York can call in and just be like, ‘Yeah, that’s not a catch,’ when there was no evidence that it wasn’t. I mean, I had it. I think it’s ridiculous.”
Hockenson claimed that two members of the officiating crew even disagreed with the decision to overturn the call.
The decision to overturn the call came from the NFL’s office in New York, and vice president of instant replay Mark Butterworth defended that decision.
“The ruling on the field was a touchdown,” Butterworth said, “so it’s replay’s jurisdiction to stop the game. We used broadcast-enhanced shots to show that as he was going to the ground — he needs control of the ball throughout the process of the catch — he lost control of the ball. The ball hit the ground. Then, he regained control of the ball. So therefore, we overturned it to an incomplete pass.”
While the call ultimately proved pivotal for the Vikings, as it led to more than a minute of additional time coming off the clock late in the game, Hockenson readily admits that there were other things the Vikings could have done to ensure victory.
“It is what it is,” Hockenson said. “Got to move on to other plays. . . . I mean you can’t go one for six [in the red zone] and win a ball game with two turnovers. We had the [opportunity] at the end, obviously. But yeah, tough one.”
The Vikings scored on just one of six trips to the red zone, and Wentz threw two interceptions in the game, including one that was returned for a touchdown the other way.