If you grew up in an urban area like me, you likely played street football at some point. If you are unfamiliar with this urban ritual, just think of arena football – with powerlines, and the boards are replaced with your neighbors’ vehicles.

For those of us that played street football, we knew the powerlines were essentially an extra defender on long pass plays. Although, in these streets, if an attempted pass ever hit the powerlines, you were able to re-do the play. Over time, we learned to beat the system, and so the slant pass was created – or so I like to believe.

It seems insane to believe electrical lines would affect an official NFL game, but if Week 5 taught us anything, it’s that the unthinkable is right around the corner.

Let’s take a look at the big controversy with camera wires that everyone is talking about from Week 5 NFL games.

What was the Controversy with the Camera Wires in the Browns-Vikings Game?

It wasn’t just one play that was affected in NFL Week 5, but there were actually two incidents with the NFL camera wires on Sunday!

During the Cleveland Browns vs Minnesota Vikings game played at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London on Sunday, October 5, 2025, Vikings kicker Will Reichard attempted a 51-yard field goal in the fourth quarter, with his team trailing 17-14. Reichard made clean contact with the ball, and out of nowhere, it sliced out to the right.

Most fans thought Reichard finally had a moment of weakness in missing his first kick of the season, but there was a “higher power” influencing the result. In fact, even the officials and announcers weren’t aware of what happened.

It wasn’t until social media users started posting replays that showed Reichard’s kick was altered by the camera wires hanging over the field. Because no one saw it until after the fact, there was no way to re-play the down. Reichard’s perfect kick resume for this season was gone, and the Vikings still trailed in the game. Luckily, the Vikings would go on to win on late touchdown, by the score of 21-17.

What was the Controversy with the Camera in the Cowboys-Jets Game?

A little more than an hour later, it happened again – this time at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ, as the New York Jets were hosting the Dallas Cowboys. 

In the first quarter, Jets QB Justin Fields dropped back to pass and threw a heater right off the helmet of Cowboys’ defense Dante Fowler. The ball ricocheted into the air, and it looked like Fowler had a chance to catch the ball and run down the field, but the Fox Skycam got in the way, knocking the ball behind him.

In this instance, the ball hit the actual camera (not the wire), so this play was certainly less egregious in nature. You can’t fault Fowler for getting to the QB, which then required Fields to throw into a much smaller window than what was intended.

I’m not so sure this was a controversy on the player, but rather the officiating once again. On this play, the announcers clearly saw the ball hit the camera while the officials did not. The play was incorrectly ruled an incomplete pass. Instead, the play should have been blown dead, and a replay of the down should have occurred. The Jets never challenged the play and wound up kicking a field goal, but it didn’t matter as the Cowboys had the game locked up by halftime.

Should the NFL Still Have Cameras Over the Field?

It is truly a fiery debate on whether the NFL should still have cameras over the field.

Granted, this is a phenomenal addition for us (the viewer), but if you are wagering on these games, you have to be concerned about the officials not making these calls on the field. In the Vikings’ instance, they were lucky that the missed call didn’t cost them the game. As for the Jets, they were lucky too that Fowler didn’t catch that ball right off his dome and take it to the house.

Ultimately, I do believe the cameras should be allowed on the field. These beautiful camera angles allow us to see angles we weren’t afforded years ago, and it does help NFL teams with scouting.

This could have been a much bigger fiasco if the Vikings had lost and the Jets had actually come to play. You have to imagine the NFL is having these talks as I write the words on this page, and we can expect the cameras to be a bit further away from the field going forward.