The NFL has gone to great lengths to prove that Minnesota Vikings kicker Will Reichard did not hit a skycam wire on an attempted field goal in London against the Cleveland Browns.
And now we know some more about just how far they went.
In the wake of Reichard’s missed kick, it seemed like everyone thought the ball hit one of the skycam wires, causing it to veer off course and miss. In the immediate aftermath of the kick, the NFL was reportedly uncertain about what happened, according to a Mike Florio report on NBC.
However, as the days moved forward, the NFL wanted to do everything possible to get rid of that uncertainty and assert that Reichard’s kick wasn’t disturbed by technology.
The incident was brought up again when the Vikings played on Thursday Night Football and veteran announcer Al Michaels noted that his only miss of the season came after WireGate.
(Part I)
Al Michaels: “Will Reichard… His only miss this year was when he hit a wire with the camera in London (https://t.co/9MVTW8muXb).” 🏈🎙️ #NFL #TNF pic.twitter.com/0Ur6PJgH7m
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) October 24, 2025
The NFL moved to quickly correct the record with Michaels, who was forced to amend his statement later in the game, and scoffing that the league “wants to take my lunch away” for his previous assessment of fact.
(Part II)
Al Michaels, later: “The league wants to take my lunch away because I said before that (Will) Reichard’s only miss was hitting a wire in London. The league says, ‘No, no, it was an optical illusion.'” 🏈🎙️ #NFL #TNF pic.twitter.com/FLwT0z5XBM
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) October 24, 2025
And now thanks to Kalyn Kahler and Kevin Seifert of ESPN.com, we know just how the league communicated to Al Michaels so quickly. It came through NFL VP of officiating Walt Anderson, who contacted Amazon Prime Video rules analyst Terry McAualay to relay the message from the league.
What’s equally as interesting in the ESPN reporting is that Anderson is directly involved with each rules official during network broadcasts to help them with their explanations. However, it’s noted that his first duty is to “protect the shield” in working for the league.
Anderson, the former VP of officiating training and development and a 17-year referee, now quietly assists each network’s rules analysts during games. The league says his role is to help each network’s broadcasters sound smarter, but as with any job in the league office, the first duty is to protect the shield, and Michaels’ comment reignited a dormant controversy the league thought it had moved past.
A league spokesperson said Anderson immediately called Amazon Prime rules analyst Terry McAulay and explained to him the league’s official stance on the London field goal: that Reichard’s ball did not make contact with the camera cable in London.
A league spokesperson said the league’s broadcasting department was in touch with Amazon’s production team during the game as well.
After a full quarter of game time, another field goal attempt and more than an hour of broadcast time, Michaels, with his trademark sarcasm, issued a correction.
“The league wants to take my lunch away because I said before that Reichard’s only miss came when he hit a wire in London,” Michaels said. “The league says, ‘No, no, it was an optical illusion.’ [That’s] not what Reichard thinks.”
The official statement given to ESPN gives the definitive answer on how it looked like the ball hit the wire, noting the location of the camera, ball, and skycam cable to create the “optical illusion.”
“There is no video evidence of the football making contact with the broadcast cable. The day after the game, we were in touch with our colleagues who handled production responsibilities for the NFL Network broadcast. Those engineers, who were on site in London, verified that because of the position of the camera behind the kicker and where the cables were mounted in the stadium, it was not possible for the cables to interfere with the flight of the ball. The slow-motion replay of the kick that went to air was from a low-end zone camera on the tight end of its lens, which compresses the plane of focus. That’s why the football and one of the cables are visible in the same shot, but the ball in no way made any contact with the cable.”
The NFL’s explanation is obviously not going to please everyone. There are Vikings fans who have studied the kick like the Zapruder film and will never be convinced that the ball didn’t hit the wire. Although the league’s explanation and pictures and video they have produced make sense, there’s nothing football fans love more than officiating conspiracy theories.
However, what might be more interesting is to learn just how involved the league is with each network broadcast, specifically through the rules experts, all of whom are former NFL officials. It makes you now wonder if the rules analysts are giving their own independent viewpoint, or saying what the league is forwarding to them. NFL officiating is extremely complex and this season has seen a focus on the inconsistent use of expedited replay. The subjective nature of a lot of calls is always going to be greatly debated.
But at a time when fans, analysts, and everybody in football wants more transparency from the NFL, the league working to influence broadcasters and rules analysts behind the scenes means the exact opposite is happening.