Dr. Z - Sports Illustrated:
"Now we come to Buffalo-New England. I was lucky enough to get coaching tapes of that one. What they showed was that the worst call wasn't the interference in the end zone on the Hail Mary.
This is what happened:
The Patriots, with the ball on the Bills' 26 and time for one play, ran three wideouts down the left side. The Bills defended it with five DBs. The interesting thing was that unlike most Hail Marys, when everything is bunched into a big cluster, there was clear separation between all receivers and defenders. That's what made any interference fairly easy to spot.
Irvin could have made the play on the ball but he froze. Glenn went up for it, and Jones loosely grabbed him around the waist -- not a blatant grab, but there was contact. The ball hit Glenn in the chest, the flag came down. If the contact had been made in the middle of a milling mob, with everyone bumping everyone else, then I'd agree that it was outrageous, but as I said, there was room for the official to get a clear look at the play. A close call, but not an especially bad one.
The really bad call came on the play preceding that one. The Patriots had fourth and nine on the Bills' 36. Drew Bledsoe threw a sideline pass to Jefferson. He went up for the ball, stretched and came down with it out-of-bounds. The question was: Were his feet in at the moment of the catch? No, they weren't. It appeared that Jefferson lifted his left foot just before the ball arrived. The right foot was clearly in the air. Uh-uh, no catch.
The Bills have to get over that awful loss to New England, courtesy of Walt Coleman's officiating crew."
