BEREA, Ohio -- The NFL defended the reversal of the Carlos Hyde third-down conversion in the 45-42 overtime loss to the Raiders, but former NFL VP of officiating Dean Blandino doubled down Monday that it was a bogus call.

The ruling on the field was that Hyde had gained the necessary two yards from the 17 with 1:38 left in regulation and the Browns ahead 42-34. The Browns could've run out the clock and celebrated their first back-to-back victories since 2014.

Instead, replay official Billy Smith overturned the conversion, determining that Hyde's elbow touched the ground short of the first down. The Raiders went on to tie it at 42 with 30 seconds remaining, and Baker Mayfield threw a pick with seven seconds remaining. Oakland went on to win 45-42 in OT.

"From the line feed, you can see the line to gain is just past the 19-yard line,'' a league source told cleveland.com in an email response. "One replay angle shows the wrist and the elbow hit the ground simultaneously. Then when you go back to the line feed, you see the wrist hit the ground and you know the elbow is down. At that point, you are able to clearly see that the ball is short of the line to gain.''





NFL Senior Vice President of Officiating Alberto Riveron also defended the reversal after the game, telling profootballtalk.com it was the right call.

"The angles definitely gave me a view and perspective that he was short," Riveron said.

But Fox rules analyst Dean Blandino, the NFL's former VP of Officiating, disagreed during the game broadcast.

"I think we're all looking at this here in the studio and we're shocked that they overturned it," Blandino said. "Again, you don't have a big line (on the review), it's tough to tell exactly where the ball is. I wouldn't have overturned that one."

Blandino doubled down on that during an interview on Sirius XM NFL radio on Monday, saying "if you have to try to piece together multiple angles in order to explain why you overturned a call it's probably not indisputable.''

The Browns certainly agreed with Blandino.

"We definitely were shocked,'' Hyde said after the game. "We all thought it was a first down. It was huge. It was a chance to put the game away.''

The explanation?

"They said my forearm was down and they ruled me down right there,'' he said.

"Listen, it's an awful call,'' said receiver Jarvis Landry. "I was right there. But, at the end of the day, we can blame the refs, we can blame so many things why it didn't work out, but that was a tough one.''

Said Baker Mayfield, who took blame for turning the ball over four times, "it had to be a heck of a review to turn that over on the third down and short. So, I don't know. But any time you put it somebody else's hands it's not always going to turn out your way. We've got to control what we can control and execute better.

"I thought he got it. I've got a biased opinion though. I wanted him to get it. That's not the only play that put them in position to win though."