While no amount of help from the officials would’ve changed the outcome of the Kansas City Chiefs Week 13 win over Denver, one NFL head coach had something to say about a bang-bang play that was ruled an incompletion. Star tight end Travis Kelce dropped a ball against the Broncos after a well-timed punch from a defender jarred it loose. Many, including former Chiefs linebacker and current Titans head coach Mike Vrabel, thought the play should’ve been ruled a fumble.
In real-time, the ruling on the field seemed to make sense, but when it was slowed down there was definitely a case to be made that Kelce had possession after attempting to tuck the ball away. The officials reviewed the play and ruled that it wasn’t a fumble.
Evidently, Vrabel was less than pleased with the call, posting a passive-aggressive reply to the official NFL Officiating Twitter post on the outcome of the play. Check out the original tweet from NFL Officiating, as well as Vrabel’s screenshot rebuttal of a section of the league’s rulebook posted in response to it:
— Mike Vrabel (@CoachVrabel50) December 6, 2021
When a team plays in primetime as much as Kansas City has this season, drawing a larger and more diverse audience is part of the spectacle, but nobody could’ve predicted a coach like Vrabel would feel so intensely about one play in another team’s game. It just comes off as odd, especially given the way Tennessee has fallen from grace in recent weeks, losing their stranglehold on the top spot in the conference.
Vrabel explained his Twitter comment when speaking to reporters on Monday, claiming that he was merely sharing the rules on the process of the catch.
“It was just my opportunity to sit there and be a fan and watch, and I felt like it was a good opportunity to remind everybody the rules for the process of a catch, that’s all that was. I have that on my phone; that’s on my home screen, the rulebook. I took a screenshot, figured out how to tweet it out so everybody that followed could understand what the process of a catch was, and what it isn’t.”
It’s a likely story, and probably one that takes him out of the crosshairs of the league office. Vrabel might be wise to focus his energy on the task at hand for his Titans as the playoffs approach.
