The NFL doesn't defend every controversial call that gets made around the league each week, but they did decide to offer an explanation for a key replay reversal that went down during the waning minutes of the Browns-Raiders game on Sunday.

One of the most controversial plays in all of Week 4 happened in Oakland when Carlos Hyde appeared to ice a potential win for the Browns after picking up a key first down with under two minutes remaining. 

As it turns out though, Hyde's run didn't do anything except enrage Browns fans, and that's because the ruling on the field of a first down was overturned after an official review from NFL headquarters in New York. 

Hyde's run came on a third-and-2 play with just 1:38 left, meaning a first down would have given the Browns a 42-34 win. 

So why did the NFL's VP of officiating decide to overturn on the field?

The league sent out an explanation for the call this week. 

"From the line feed, you can see the line to gain is just past the 19-yard line," an NFL spokesman said, via NFL.com. "One replay angle shows [Hyde's] 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."

The man who made reversed the call, Al Riveron, gave a similar explanation during an interview with NBC's Peter King. 

"When his wrist goes down, it goes down at the same time as the elbow … everything hits the ground at the same time," Riveron explained. "The helmet [of Hyde] is barely breaking the plane of the 19, and the ball is not breaking the plane. We can clearly see when the wrist, forearm and elbow hit the ground, it's short of the [first-down] line."

After re-watching the film, it appears the NFL DID make the correct call. First, here's the replay angle that shows Hyde's wrist and elbow hitting the ground at the same time, which is the first angle the league looked at, according to the NFL spokesman. 

From there, the NFL looked at the line feed to determine where the ball was. 

As you can see below, the football is well behind the yellow first-down line when Hyde's arm hits the ground. 

carlos-hyde-first-down-browns-raiders.png
Carlos Hyde appeared to fall short of a first down on this key play in the Browns-Raiders game.  Fox/NFL Game Pass

Even if the yellow line is off by inches, which is possible, it appears that Hyde still would have fallen short. 

Although the officials appeared to have made the correct call on this play, that doesn't mean they got everything else right. Earlier this week, Ryan Wilson covered four questionable calls from the game with two calls going against both teams. 

One call that keeps coming up is the Derek Carr fumble in the fourth quarter that wasn't called a fumble. The irony there is that the call ended up helping the Browns. If the Carr fumble counted and the Browns returned it for a touchdown, the Raiders would have gotten the ball back trailing 42-34 with roughly 6:15 left in the game. Instead, the fumble didn't count, the Raiders punted and the Browns were able to get a touchdown anyway PLUS burn another 1:26 off the clock. So yes, that was a horrible no call on the fumble, but it's hard to argue that it cost the Browns the game. 

The Browns also had a chance to win in regulation, but Baker Mayfield threw a pick after driving Cleveland to the Raiders' 49-yard line. Before the pick, the Browns needed just 10-13 more yards to give their kicker a shot at a potential game-winning field goal attempt. The Browns also got the ball in overtime, needing just a field goal to win, but went three-and-out.