Yeah, the Steelers got away with a penalty on Antonio Brown’s game-winning TD

Justin Hunter’s key block was legal at first, but he held it too long. Officials missed it, and the Steelers won.

In the last minute of Sunday’s Steelers-Bengals game, Antonio Brown caught a pass and ran for a 31-yard touchdown that held up as the decisive score: Pittsburgh 28, Cincinnati 21. There’s a strong argument that the touchdown should not have counted, though.

Here’s the play. Watch No. 11 for Pittsburgh, receiver Justin Hunter. He’s the guy lined up in the slot, right in front and a few steps to the right of No. 84, Brown:

Here’s what Hunter does to free up Brown on a slant route:

It’s important to distinguish what Hunter’s doing here (blocking) from what receivers do all the time on routes over the middle (setting subtle picks while running their routes). There are entire passing concepts built around receivers criss-crossing each other and creating a traffic jam and effectively blocking defenders from following their men. The most famous concept to this effect is “Mesh,” a longtime hit in both the NFL and college football.

Creating traffic in that way is allowed under the rules, which defines those subtle picks as “incidental contact”:

Incidental contact by an opponent’s hands, arms, or body when both players are competing for the ball, or neither player is looking for the ball. If there is any question whether contact is incidental, the ruling shall be no interference.

Hunter and Brown aren’t doing that here, though. Hunter isn’t even pretending to run a route. He’s just blocking, reaching out to take Bengals cornerback Tony McRae (No. 29) out of Brown’s way. There are strict but specific rules about offensive players doing that.

Hunter’s block was illegal, even though it started within 1 yard of the line of scrimmage, where the offense has more freedom.

What the rulebook says about that 1-yard window:

It is pass interference by either team when any act by a player more than one yard beyond the line of scrimmage significantly hinders an eligible player’s opportunity to catch the ball.

When Hunter starts his block on McRae, they’re about 1 yard beyond the line. At this point, Hunter’s block remains legal. Officials aren’t going to bring out a measuring stick to see if Hunter’s a few inches beyond the 1-yard mark, which he admittedly might be:

So, Hunter’s good, right? Not really, because the rulebook also specifies that offensive pass interference occurs if a player keeps blocking while a pass is in the air and the block happens “in the vicinity” of the target of the pass. What the rules say:

Blocking more than one yard beyond the line of scrimmage by an offensive player prior to a pass being thrown is offensive pass interference ...

Note: It is also pass interference by the offense to block a defender beyond the line while the pass is in the air, if the block occurs in the vicinity of the player to whom the pass is thrown. See 8-3-1-Note for exception for ineligible players.

Well, here’s Hunter blocking while the ball’s in the air:

So, yeah: Hunter wasn’t allowed to do that. The Steelers should have lost 10 yards from the previous spot, going back to the Bengals’ 41, where they would have needed another big play to get into Chris Boswell’s field goal range.