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.
Bill Vinovich and Josh Allen having a chat pic.twitter.com/2LFbSXo6ua
— NFL on CBS 🏈 (@NFLonCBS) January 12, 2025
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:
I have never seen a referee huddle with a QB after a blatant missed call during a game. And so friendly! Never. https://t.co/JhNwmJInkG
— Don Van Natta Jr. (@DVNJr) January 12, 2025
I have never seen something like this.
The ref is all the way to the Bills bench to apologize to Josh Allen pic.twitter.com/Q28HigzTbu
— Zac Stevens (@ZacStevensDNVR) January 12, 2025
Personal apology from the ref to Josh Allen 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
I’ve seen it all man. pic.twitter.com/EpDccLOP1l
— Jack Mac (@JackMacCFB) January 12, 2025
The ref apologizing to Josh Allen on bench is just insane 💀 pic.twitter.com/WB0fYeYwr0
— NFL Memes (@NFL_Memes) January 12, 2025
If this happened with Patrick Mahomes opposing fans would be having full on meltdowns.
There would be a mob of crybabies and conspiracy theorists outside the stadium with torches and pitchforks. pic.twitter.com/7eQqqLTxWi
— Patrick Allen (@RPatrickAllen) January 12, 2025
If a ref came up to Patrick Mahomes like this, twitter would burn to the ground. pic.twitter.com/vyo5ECP5nw
— The Kingdom (@MahomeSZN) January 12, 2025
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:
Josh Allen on this scene said he was yelling a lot that a penalty should’ve been called & ref came over to tell him to calm it down. https://t.co/AO5LUNk0QL
— Cameron Wolfe (@CameronWolfe) January 12, 2025
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:
This is the clip a team will use to expand the responsibilities of the replay official pic.twitter.com/I0sVCjEdLY
— Sam Schwartzstein (@schwartzsteins) January 12, 2025
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.