Eagles

Making Sense of the Fugazi Intentional Grounding Sequence in the Fourth Quarter of the Eagles and Broncos Game

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Oct 6th, 2025 · 2:52 PM EDT

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We were treated to a ref show on Sunday afternoon at Lincoln Financial Field, with a slew of fugazi sequences involving Adrian Hill and his zebra cohorts. Among the annoyances was an intentional grounding flag that was picked up with no explanation, leading to confusion at home, in the stands, and on the game broadcast as well (first video clip, ignore the second) –

Later, a flag for intentional grounding is thrown, leading to more debate in the CBS booth.

Replay Assist changed it to just an incompletion.

Tony Romo: "They just don't tell us?"

Jim Nantz: "Yeah, they never mentioned it."

Romo: "Not that big of a deal. Just a HUGE deal." https://t.co/BlW8VJW3Ew pic.twitter.com/BOQJXYs212

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) October 5, 2025

Situationally, it was 2nd and 6 with the Eagles down one and trying to force a punt. The grounding call would have set up third and very long and likely given the Eagles the ball back. Instead, the refs ruled that there was a receiver in the vicinity of the pass.

Here’s Hill’s explanation postgame, given to pool reporter Zach Berman of The Athletic:

“So what happened there, we have an O2O – that’s our official-to-official communication system. My O2O was not working. Grounding is a teamwork foul. I had intentional grounding. The line judge had that there was a receiver in the area – 28 – but I didn’t hear the information over O2O so I threw the flag. The line judge came in and let me know that 28 indeed was in the area, and that’s why we picked up the flag.”

Hill is saying it was a communication issue, which Jim Nantz and Tony Romo had no clue about. So Nantz surmises that “they might have a replay assist coming,” which technically cannot be applied to this situation.

Expanded in 2025, replay assist says this about intentional grounding:

For the 2025 season, the NFL Competition Committee expanded replay assist to include objective input if a foul is called for: 

…

Intentional Grounding only if relative to the pocket or ball landing beyond the line of scrimmage

Replay assist can’ be used to determined whether or not there was a receiver in the vicinity. It can only be used in the case of whether or not the QB was outside of the pocket and whether or not the ball made it back to the line of scrimmage.

So that’s the gist. The crew chief had grounding, the line judge did not. The communication system was allegedly not working, so Hill couldn’t hear his guy. They talked it over and picked up the flag, but it was not explained and the broadcast didn’t know what was going on. That’s your explanation.