Rod Wood explains how Lions responded to league after 2-point fiasco vs. Cowboys

Detroit Lions’ Rod Wood and NFL officiating had a funny exchange after the 2-point chaos against the Dallas Cowboys.

Remember all the way back in December when the Detroit Lions lost to the Dallas Cowboys on a bizarre series of events during a Saturday night game? Yeah, it feels like decades ago, but team president Rod Wood provided an interesting update on the aftermath of that game.

As you likely remember, the Lions ran a trick two-point conversion play that would have given them the lead with just 23 seconds left. However, there was a miscommunication between Taylor Decker and the official. Decker attempted to report as eligible, but the lead official believed it was Dan Skipper who reported as eligible. The rift in conveying the message led to officials announcing prior to the play that Skipper was the eligible receiver—meaning Decker was not. Therefore, when Decker caught the go-ahead catch on the trick play, he was deemed an ineligible receiver and the play didn’t count.

In the aftermath of the game, coach Dan Campbell was clearly heated about the play, but in an effort to clear up his schedule so he can focus on the next game, the Lions delegated further communication with the league to Wood.

“I don’t even want to deal with it. Rod’s handling all of it, man,” Campbell said at the time. “He’s got it and I don’t even want to deal with it. I’m done. I’m good. I just want to go, and I want to get ready for Minnesota.”

So what happened after that? Down at the owners meetings in Orlando, Wood explained the process that he went through to get clarification from the league and state their case.

“You’re really not allowed to talk to the league until 9 a.m. the day following the game, so I sent a text to (executive vice president of football operations) Troy Vincent and said, ‘I’ll be calling you at 9 a.m. You know what the topic is,’” Wood said. “And I called him at 9 a.m. He was in church. So he called me back at 10, and I asked if he prayed for better officiating—which he says he always does.”

Humorous exchange aside, Wood eventually did talk with Vincent and senior vice president of officiating Walt Anderson. Unfortunately, nothing really became of it.

“I subsequently got on the phone with Troy and Walt Anderson, talked through it. There was a legitimate difference of opinion as to who said what and who heard what,” Wood explained. “The resolution is you log your complaint, and they promise to do better. There’s really nothing you can do to change it.”

The Lions have recently been active in introducing new rule proposals for each league year, but Wood said they didn’t really consider it regarding the eligibility reporting process, because they believed they followed current rules.

“We didn’t really bring it up, because we think we did it correctly,” Wood said. “I don’t know that there’s anything we could have done differently that would have caused the ref to recognize 68 (Decker) versus 70 (Skipper). It wasn’t one we talked about.”