The Detroit Lions vs. Pittsburgh Steelers game came down to one last push. The Lions were right there. Yet when the clock hit zero, the talk was not just about their loss. Instead, the refs became part of the story. And Lions’ quarterback Jared Goff made sure nobody brushed it aside after the loss.

“Those guys have a hard job, and I don’t wanna make any excuses or anything like that; we’ve been on the right side of a lot of these, and we’ve been on the wrong side of a lot of these,” he said after the game. “And I think a few plays prior, the one on [Isaac] TeSlaa was a little bit more in my head for interpretation.”

Goff addressed that offensive pass interference call directly.

After all, that call changed everything. With 25 seconds left, the Lions were at the 1-yard line, first and goal. Goff hit wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown in stride. Ford Field exploded. However, the celebration died fast as the officials wiped it out. They flagged rookie Isaac TeSlaa for offensive pass interference. It felt like their momentum was stolen.

But it didn’t end there.

Then came the chaos at the end of the game. Naturally, Goff talked about that too.

“I was hoping it was defensive, and we have another play. And if Saint was down, when I saw he wasn’t down, I was hoping it’s defensive. And then we get the touchdown and win the game, but it didn’t go that way, and we lost,” he said.

What actually happened on the last drive?

With eight seconds remaining in the game and a five-point deficit, Lions quarterback Jared Goff connected with receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown. The Steelers’ defense closed fast. Before going down, St. Brown pitched the ball back, and Goff caught it clean.

The quarterback ran it in, touchdown, or so it seemed.

Finally, the refs needed a few minutes before the decision. Then the ruling came of offensive pass interference on St. Brown.

So, they didn’t score, and the game was over. The Steelers escaped with the win. And in the Motor City, the questions will not fade anytime soon.

Referee Carl Cheffers explains the Lions incident

The ending inside Ford Field left the Motor City buzzing for all the wrong reasons. What looked like a wild finish between the Lions and the Steelers quickly turned into a rules seminar. Two offensive pass interference calls flipped the script late. Because of that, referee Carl Cheffers had some explaining to do.

After the game was done, he spoke to pool reporter Nolan Bianchi and walked through both decisions that stunned Lions Pride.

First, Cheffers addressed the call involving Isaac TeSlaa. According to him, the officials saw clear interference that changed the play. “The reporting official on that play told me that the offending player picked one of the defenders, creating an opportunity for the offensive player to make the catch.”

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In his view, that action directly impacted the defender and opened a space that should not have been there. Then, the distance question came up. Many inside Ford Field believed the contact happened too close to the line. Cheffers pushed back on that idea.

“Well, it has to be beyond a yard, or it would not be a foul. The ruling on the field was that the action occurred beyond a yard.”

Later, he also discussed the final play. The St. Brown catch, the lateral to Jared Goff, and the apparent score all came back because of another OPI call.

“It is a pretty complex play,” Cheffers stated. “We have the original player who had the ball, lost possession of the ball. So, we had to decide if that was a fumble or a backwards pass because, of course, we have restrictions on the recovery of a fumble inside of two minutes. We ruled that it was a backward pass, so the recovering player was able to advance it, and that recovering player advanced it for a touchdown.

“We had to rule on tha,t and then because of the offensive pass interference, it negates the touchdown. Because it is an offensive foul, we did not extend the half. Therefore, there is no score, and there is no replay of the down. That’s the way the rule is written.”

In the end, the Steel City walked away smiling. The Motor City was left with explanations instead of answers.