Sunday’s NFL slate got off to a puzzling start overseas, as the Philadelphia Eagles and Jacksonville Jaguars kicked off from London.
The Jaguars returned the opening kickoff to the house, but four separate penalties — two during and two after the play — led to several minutes of meetings between NFL official Ron Torbert and his crew. Ultimately, the touchdown was called back for offsetting penalties during the play, and a pair of unsportsmanlike conduct penalties after the play led to both Eagles linebacker Jeremiah Trotter Jr. and Jaguars defensive end Bryan Thomas Jr. being ejected.
Unfortunately, fans at home struggled to understand the circumstances behind the ejections because NFL Network could not find a replay that showed the full incident between Trotter Jr. and Thomas Jr. Here’s how the NFL Network telecast looked throughout the sequence:
Jeremiah Trotter Jr. and Bryan Thomas Jr. get ejected during a wild opening kickoff of Eagles-Jags in London. Unfortunately, we don’t get much of a helpful replay to show what happened.
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing.bsky.social) October 11, 2026 at 9:57 AM
Both replays shown of the altercation between Trotter Jr. and Thomas Jr. did not show any behavior that would typically warrant an ejection, although it was clear there was physicality between the two players after the play.
“I wish we had more of what happened between Trotter and Thomas,” NFL Network analyst Jason Kelce said when replays failed to capture why the players were ejected.
Later in the first quarter, NFL Network would revisit the ejections with a slightly more revealing replay.
NFL Network would return to the incident later in the first quarter with a (slightly) more revealing replay
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing.bsky.social) October 11, 2026 at 10:05 AM
Still, the high and wide replay did not give a clear view of what happened to spur the ejections.
In the second quarter, the broadcast would revisit the incident yet again. This time, NFL Network showed a far-away shot from the corner of the stadium that captured a fuller look at the altercation. From that angle, it appeared Trotter Jr. and Thomas Jr. took each other to the ground and wrestled with one another, leading to Thomas Jr.’s apparent kick of Trotter Jr.
It’s rare that an NFL broadcast doesn’t have a clear camera shot of an incident like this, but because it happened so far away from the play and on a kickoff, this would qualify as extenuating circumstances.
Fans, of course, will still question whether either of the ejections were justified, absent of a clearer view of the incident.