Photo: Gord Weber/3DownNation. All rights reserved.
Time to reflect generally softens opinions when it comes to controversial calls in football, but distance has only made Montreal Alouettes’ head coach Jason Maas more certain that his team was robbed of a victory against the Edmonton Elks.
The Alouettes were leading in overtime when Najee Murray forced a fumble from Justin Rankin, which could have ended the contest. Instead, the officials ruled that offensive lineman Brendan Bordner touched the football last in the mad scramble before it went out of bounds, not Montreal safety Nate Beauchemin.
That ruling kept the ball in Edmonton’s hands, but Maas doesn’t believe the tape backs up the call.
“When I look at the film, what I would judge it off of, I would say it was our ball,” Maas told the Montreal media this week. “But that’s not what they ruled, and that’s unfortunate because no matter what happened in that game, the game’s over at that point.
The 50-year-old former quarterback has a history of fiery outbursts on the sidelines, but remained relatively subdued when the call was made on Saturday at Commonwealth Stadium. He indicated that was because he was only able to determine what occurred with the benefit of film post-game.
“What I will always say about things that happen on the field, if I see it very clearly, you’ll see my reaction and I’ll go to my grave believing what I saw,” he explained. “From my perspective, I couldn’t tell, but I was behind the ball. I wasn’t where the referee, who was right there, made the call. You’ve got to go with that. Had I had his perspective, I probably would have had a whole different reaction to it, but my perspective was on the opposite side, where there were a lot of people in the way. I knew we were close to it, I just didn’t see a clear thing.”
The play was challengeable, but the ruling on the field had already been automatically reviewed as a potential turnover. The replay centre in Toronto agreed with the call and the result stood, dissuading Maas from pressing the issue further.
“You would have seen a different reaction if I’d seen it, and that’s why if you ever see me throw my challenge flag and I’m the one looking at it, I don’t ask upstairs,” he insisted. “I throw it with conviction because I see what I see. But if I don’t see what I see, I’m just going to react like anybody.”
Edmonton would find the end zone two plays later, as Cody Fajardo called his own number to secure a walk-off 32-29 victory. It was the Alouettes’ first defeat of the season and came on the heels of a 10-point fourth-quarter comeback to force overtime. Though Montreal would have won had the referee ruled differently, Maas isn’t letting his team use it as an excuse.
“You’ve got to go with the referee’s ruling and the replay official’s ruling, and then live with it. That’s it,” he said. “We had a chance after that to get a stop, we didn’t. They made a play at the end and won the ball game.”
As for whether the officials might have made a better call if their view was as obstructed as his, Maas could only chuckle.
“No comment.”
The Alouettes (2-1) will return to action on Sunday, June 28, when they host the Ottawa Redblacks (0-2). Kickoff is slated for 7:00 p.m. EDT.
