CBS footage of Bill Vinovich talking to Josh Allen. CBS footage of Bill Vinovich talking to Josh Allen. (NFL on CBS on X.)

A significant part of sports comes from visuals that don’t necessarily have accompanying audio. That leads to assumptions on what just is being said in the photo or clip. And while those assumptions often work out, they sometimes fall apart.

The latest case in point there may be NFL referee Bill Vinovich’s sideline conversation with Buffalo Bills’ QB Josh Allen during Buffalo’s 31-7 win over the Denver Broncos Sunday:

In that game, there was what looked like a clear missed call of defensive pass interference on Broncos’ cornerback Patrick Surtain II for mugging Bills’ TE Dalton Kincaid in Denver’s end zone. Shortly after that, the NFL on CBS broadcast showed Vinovich going over to the Bills’ sideline and talking to Allen. And many assumed that was him apologizing for the missed call.

And that prompted a huge amount of social media discussion. Many chimed in on how unusual and unprecedented a ref apologizing to a quarterback for a missed DPI call was. And that included further talk on how wild the ensuing conversation would have been if this was another quarterback, such as Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes (who has been the subject of many conspiracy theories about the NFL looking to help him and the Chiefs). Here are just a few of those posts:

But, as per Allen himself, that’s a misstatement of what happened.

As NFL Network’s Cameron Wolfe relayed, Allen said postgame that Vinovich was telling him to stifle his criticisms of the missed call:

It’s understandable why many jumped to assuming this was an apology. This certainly looked like an obvious missed call, especially with an official so close to the play. And it even sparked calls for enhanced replay review:

But it’s worth reiterating that without full audio of a scene, we don’t have the full picture of how the depicted exchange went. (And even with full audio, there are sometimes disputes over what was said.) And while lip-reading attempts can add to this, they’re far from perfect in their own right.

So while it’s fair to make assumptions based on probabilities, those need to come with caveats that they may not accurately represent the actual discussion in the image or video clip. And, presuming that Allen is accurately portraying this interaction, this case is the latest illustration of that.

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.