Photo credit: XFL.com
In the final seconds of the Houston Roughnecks 32-23 win against the Seattle Dragons, the XFL officiating crew made their first major gaffe of the season costing the Dragons a chance to tie the game. The Roughnecks were up by 9 points near the end of the game and confusingly, Houston’s QB PJ Walker on 4th and 23 took a knee with 3 seconds left. After a 1 second runoff, the Seattle Dragons should have had 2 seconds left to take the field and run a final play. Instead the officiating crew allowed the clock to continue running and called the game.
https://twitter.com/BadSportsRefs/status/1236421013275136000?s=20
While it would not have guaranteed a win for the Dragons as they would have taken over the ball on the 22 yard line and needed to convert a 3 point play to tie the game, it was still frustrating nonetheless. Viewers watching the game were as stunned as the ESPN announcers who could not comprehend why the officials all left the stadium. ESPN announcer Steve Levy asked XFL officiating supervisor Wes Booker about the play.
“There should be two seconds left,” Booker said. “We had determined that the game was over. We went back and looked at it in replay, but it was already … the game was already over so there’s nothing we could do to get everybody back.”
It was confounding why Booker did not return the teams and the officials to the field to run the final play. There is some small comfort in the XFL swiftly responding to the issue with an apology and punishing Booker with a reassignment of duties.
XFL statement regarding Seattle-Houston gamehttps://t.co/baKwS31q07 pic.twitter.com/X4sFlZPegp
— United Football League (@TheUFL) March 8, 2020
In the game however, BJ Daniels made his 1st start in the XFL to mixed results. Daniels completed just 14-22 for 114 yards, however, he did rush for an additional 30 yards scoring 2 TDs and zero interceptions. As a whole the Dragons struggled in the ground game with 32 rushing yards for 100 yards and just 3.1 yards per run. The Dragons went backwards often in this game, getting dropped on 4 sacks and losing 33 yards on penalties.
The defense came up big as Marko Myers and Jordan Martin each had an interception on the XFL’s best QB. And while there were big plays, the Dragons were unable to stop Coach June Jones run and shoot as PJ Walker threw for 351 yards on 27-38 attempts.
The Dragons are now 1-4 while the Roughnecks go to 5-0. Ultimately, playoffs are most likely out of reach; however, since the XFL rewards winning teams with a bonus, there is plenty of incentive to keep trying hard. And while the Dragons lost, they looked a lot better in this game with BJ Daniels at the helm than they have in the previous games. At the midway mark, they can take their lessons learned and try to get back to .500.
