Brad Allen: Tetairoa McMillan "created separation more than one yard downfield"

In the third quarter of Saturday's Panthers-Bucs game, Carolina receiver Tetairoa McMillan caught a 32-yard pass on third and two, giving his team a first down on the Tampa 36.

It didn't count.

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McMillan was called for offensive pass interference. Not for anything he did while the pass was incoming. For what he did to get off the line of scrimmage.

McMillan fought through a jam with a shove. And that, according to referee Brad Allen, was enough to draw a flag.

Said referee Brad Allen to pool reporter Greg Auman after the game: “The covering official saw that the receiver created separation more than one yard downfield, which by rule is illegal and is offensive pass interference.”

Is it though? We checked the rule book. The ball was not in the air. Before the ball is in the air, an offensive player can't block more than a yard downfield. Does anyone really think McMillan was making a block?

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He was trying to fight off a jam. Really, what's a receiver supposed to do when he's legally chucked within the five-yard window? Take it?

The defender pushes the player. The player can't push back?

Maybe there's some esoteric explanation in the "Approved Rulings" or other such interpretive documentation. Or maybe it's one of those situations where the rules say one thing but the officials apply it differently. Still, as it relates to the pass interference rule as spelled out in the official 2025 rulebook (Rule 8, Section 5, Article 4), the only prohibited act by the offense before the ball is in the air is "blocking" more than one yard beyond the line of scrimmage. Which is a rule that we usually once see applied when the offense is running a pick play.

So that's the bottom line. The official who flipped 42 yards of field position (erasing the 32-yard catch and adding a 10-yard penalty for the Panthers) determined that McMillan wasn't fending off an effort to disrupt his route but "blocking."

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If that's truly the rule, we've got a feeling it rarely gets applied the way it was applied to McMillan.

Either way, we can't wait to see what Walt Anderson has to say about this, in his usual two-minute cameo during a 240-minute pregame show.