A lot happened in Sunday night's Chargers-Steelers game, from Pittsburgh blowing a 23-7 first-half lead, to several blown calls by the officials, to a three-play, three-offsides sequence to end things. Mercifully, Michael Badgley finally converted a 29-yard field goal as time expired to give the Chargers the 33-30 win.
Perhaps it was fitting that, on an evening with plenty of controversy, those final seconds were also marred by penalties and confusion. With the score tied, Los Angeles got the ball with 4:10 left in the fourth quarter. Eleven plays and 4:07 later, Badgley was lining up for a 39-yard game-winner.
He honked it wide left, which would have sent the game to overtime -- except the Steelers were flagged for being offsides. They were flagged twice more for good measure, and on the final attempt Artie Burns was so early that he jumped past Badgley before he could attempt the kick:
Shortly after the Chargers prevailed, Browns linebacker Joe Schobert tweeted this about Chargers long snapper Mike Windt:
Warren Sharp of SharpFootballStats.com broke down the offsides calls:
Interestingly, back in Week 7, Cowboys long snapper L.P. Ladouceur, who has been in the league since 2005, was flagged -- wait for it -- for a snap infraction. The penalty meant Dallas kicker Brett Maher would have to attempt a 52-yard field goal to potentially tie the game, instead of a 47-yarder. The ball hit the upright and the Cowboys lost.
"Never had that before," Ladouceur said at the time. "I do the exact same thing every time, so when that happens, that's what I was telling the ref: 'I do the exact same thing. Yeah, the guy jumped.' That's what I thought."
Which is why we weren't surprised Windt wasn't flagged in Pittsburgh on Sunday night. It's never called. Except for that one time in Week 7 against a player who is in his 14th season.
The NFL had an explanation, however. Vice president of officiating, Al Riveron, explained via Twitter: "The illegal ball movement by the center causes the defense to come across the neutral zone and contact a lineman."
There was no evidence of Windt doing that against the Steelers -- and none of the Pittsburgh players suggested as much afterwards -- but Schobert's tweet is noteworthy either way.
Here's what CBSSports.com's John Breech wrote after Ladouceur was flagged and it seems just as applicable now:
"The bottom line is that the Ladouceur penalty has only made things more confusing. What he did is either a penalty or it's not, which means it should be an easy call for officials, but that's clearly not the case. The officials in Washington only flagged Ladouceur one out of five times on Sunday, which means it wasn't a penalty 80 percent of the time."
Put another way: The officials blew a few calls on Sunday night but one of them wasn't the decision to not penalize the Los Angeles' long snapper on the final field goal(s).
The Chargers host the Bengals in Week 14 (4:05 p.m. ET, CBS, stream on CBS All Access or fuboTV, try for free) while the Steelers travel to Oakland (4:25 p.m. ET, Fox, stream on fuboTV, try for free).