Many sportcasters will tell you that the worst thing a sports official can do is something that draws attention to himself. Well, as Boomer and Dan inferred this week during the half-time update of the Pittsburgh vs Indianapolis game, there have been several officials who have made some clearly either biased or just plain wrong calls! And it didn't get any better after they made their comments.
I didn't see the Seattle vs Washington game so I have no comments regarding that match up. However, in the games that followed there were some clear examples of oafish officiating that'd I'd like to point out and offer the actual final score for those contests.
New England vs Denver: Point one: Assante Samuel is stride for stride with the Denver wide receiver. He has position and is looking back for the ball. The WR nudges Samuel on his outside shoulder causing him to stumble. The WR then places his inside hand on Samuel's shoulderpads slowing Samuel down. After the clearly uncatchable ball sails over the WR head the back judge from the other side of the field throws a late flag. The terrible call? Defensive pass interference! A 70 yard penatly. 1st and goal from the 1 for Denver. Gift #1 from the officials. The correct call? Either no call, let the back judge who was 3 feet from the play make the call, or call offensive pass interference.
Point two: Champ "the Loser" Bailey has intercepted Tom Brady in his own end zone. He then proceeds to run 100 yards to the 1 yard line where his is slammed by the Patriots TE Ben Watson. Bailey loses the ball. He clearly fumbles the ball forward and out of bounds. The ruling? Denver ball on the one. My question: If the runner was on the 1 yard line and the ball was obviously fumbled forward how did it go out of bounds on the 1 yard line? Does the head linesman who made that distinction live in some parallel universe where 1 + a positive number = 1? The correct ruling? Fumbled out of bounds in the end zone. A touchback. Patriots' ball on their own 20 yard line. They even reviewed this one. It sucks when your head official has cash on the home team!
Actual final score: Patriots 13 Denver 13 Officials 14. So the Officials will host the Pittsburgh Steelers next week to see who will go to the big dance. Too bad the Officials couldn't quite squeeze out a win in Indy, even though they tried:
Pittsburgh vs Indianapolis: Point one: Another pass interference call. Except this time it was a no-call. And Phil Simms, who was doing color to Joe Buck's play by play, even said, "Perhaps with yesterday's terrible pass interference call agents the Pats, the refs may be reluctant to call it today." So dirty teams playing on Sunday reap the benefits of dirty refs calling on Saturday! Let that be a lesson to you!
Point two: And perhaps this is the most obviously incorrect, criminally wrong call of the weekend. Polamalu made an amazing diving play to intercept Peyton "the Whiner" Manning. Marsh-Mallow caught the ball cleanly, rolled over twice because of his dive. Then, as he started to get up to run the ball back he knocked the ball out of his own hand. He then fell on his fumble to retain possession. Because it was late in the game and Indy was down by 11, in an act of desperation (or maybe to call in a favor) Coach Dungy challenges the ruling of a catch. Here's the shocker: The ruling was over turned! The official claimed that because he lost possession before his knee came off the ground that he didn't catch the ball. What? Where is that ruling? If a Colt had touched him before he got up he would have been down by contact and would have caught the ball! What kind of imbecile do you take the fans for, ref?! Peyton takes his second chance, drives, scores a TD and gets the 2 pt conversion. Now they trail only by 3! Shaken but not stirred, somehow the Steelers manage to hold the Colts on 4th and 7 from their own 4, sacking Manning on the 2! On the next play Bettis fumbles. After a quick drive, Mike "I'm no Vinatieri" Vanderjact (in a fit of conscience?) then misses a 47 yd field goal to tie (that never should have meant a thing!) so Pitt hangs on to win! Actual Final score: Pittsburgh 21 Indianapolis 10 Officials 8.
So here's the final deal: Carolina couldn't stop the impotent Chicago offense from scoring 21 points they won't be able to stop Seattle. Denver did not win that game as much as New England and the Officials handed it to them on a platter. Super Bowl Matchup: Seattle vs Pittsburgh. Pittsburg wins it all.
The only part of this post that's just my opinion is the paragraph above this one! And that's a fact!
6 comments:
Not to mention the interception by the Bears that was allowed to be ripped away by a Panther once the Bear was down by contact.
And the "there was no penalty" when six of the Colts jumped offsides causing the Steelers to move on 4th and very short.
Just a few more...
I don't watch sports as religiously as you do, and therefore do not have same knowledge of the game. But one observation if I may . . . over the past year, i've heard you complain more about "officiating determining the outcome" than I have heard you critiquing the sports teams ability.
I don't know . . . not saying your totally wrong or anything. There might be something to this. But after hearing the continual conclusion that "We lost because the officials handed the game to the other team," it sort of becomes a form of crying wolf. And I know that you've mentioned that the Pats didn't play very well and this contributes...but...i've heard this officiating thing from you quite a bit.
It's funny you should mention that. When these two obvious miss-calls occurred, I recognized that someone would call me on this. And I think back to my complaints about officiating and I seriously believe that no other officiating blunders affected the outcome of as important a game of a team that I support regularly as these two calls.
I think my issue is that, as a fan, I expect the players to mess up. That is part of the game. Fumbles, over-throws, missed field-goals... these are things that are going to happen. The officiating is supposed to be a constant. They enforce the rules of the game. If a rule is broken, enforce it. If it's not, don't. Players will often alter the outcome of a game by committing a penalty. But an official should not alter the course of a game by calling a penalty that didn't occur.
I'm frustrated by poor playing. I'm angered by poor officiating.
The officials of the Indianapolis/Pittsburgh game apologized today for overturning the call regarding the Polamalu interception. They have admitted that they were wrong in that situation. Why can they do this? Pittsburgh won. Will we hear an apology for either call made against the Patriots? No. Why not? The Patriots lost and were an apology issued they could then point to those massively momentum swinging calls as potential reasons. The NFL cannot take that risk. They issued an apology regarding the Seattle/NYG game as well because the team they were apologizing to won. Everyone and their mother assumes that NE would have won that game if Pit wasn’t given 1 and goal from the 1 on two undeserved occasions!
whoops. if Denver wasn't given 1st and goal from the 1 on two undeserved occasions.
Denver broke an NFL rule when D. Branch was hit when attempting to make a fair catch before the ball hit the ground! You are NOT allowed to hit a kick receiver or a touch the ball before the ball hits the ground if the receiver has called for a fair catch!
D. Branch was not allowed to make a catch. It does not matter that he muffed the punt. If he called for a fair catch, the ball bounced off of his helmet and went straight into the air, no defender is allowed to touch either the ball or the catcher until the ball touches the ground! That should have been the Patriots ball 10 yards further up the field!
Thank you, once again, the better team did not win this game.
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