🏆 Legends born in the arena
Jim Schwartz Challenge Rule Changed Lions-Texans Thanksgiving Game
- What: Jim Schwartz’s illegal challenge on an automatically reviewable Justin Forsett touchdown in a 2012 Lions-Texans game prevented replay from correcting an obvious mistake and helped prompt an NFL rule change.
- Where: Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan.
- When: Thanksgiving Day 2012.
On Thanksgiving Day 2012 in Detroit, an obvious officiating mistake became a lasting NFL rules story because Lions coach Jim Schwartz threw a challenge flag when he was not allowed to.
Justin Forsett Thanksgiving Touchdown
The play came first. Houston Texans running back Justin Forsett took a handoff in the third quarter and was clearly down by contact after Detroit safety Louis Delmas touched him. But Forsett got up, kept running, and went 81 yards for what was ruled a touchdown. Ford Field reacted immediately because the replay on the stadium screens showed the problem right away.
Under NFL rules at the time, all scoring plays were already subject to automatic booth review. That meant Schwartz did not need to challenge. In fact, he could not. But seeing the blown call unfold in real time, he threw the red flag anyway.
NFL Challenge Flag Rule
That is where the little-known rule changed everything. Because Schwartz challenged a play that was automatically reviewable, the rule imposed a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and, more importantly, barred the officials from reviewing the play. So the touchdown stood, even though replay almost certainly would have erased it.
Referee Walt Coleman announced the penalty and the consequence on the field, turning a bad call into a locked-in result. Instead of correcting Forsett’s run back to the point where he was down, the Texans kept the touchdown. Houston eventually beat Detroit 34-31 in overtime.
NFL Replay Rule Change
The rule was widely criticized afterward, not because Schwartz was allowed to challenge, but because his mistaken challenge prevented replay from fixing an obvious error. Schwartz later said he knew scoring plays were reviewed automatically but acted in the heat of the moment. The NFL soon changed the rule. Beginning the next season, if a coach improperly challenged an automatically reviewable play, the team would still be penalized, but replay review would no longer be taken off the table.
That is the concrete consequence of the 2012 Lions-Texans Thanksgiving game: one illegal challenge did not just cost field position. It became the reason an unmistakable touchdown mistake counted, and it directly helped push the NFL to rewrite how review worked on those plays.
Did You Know?
Walt Coleman, the referee in the game, had also been the official for the infamous 2002 “Tuck Rule” playoff game between the Raiders and Patriots.