NFL officiating

Stitch01

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Remember, on the flip side this is a non-call for Gronk. Two guys just ride him 12 yards downfield, nbd.
 

E5 Yaz

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Boomer Esiason of The NFL Today and WFAN joined Toucher & Rich on Monday morning to discuss the Patriots’ loss, and said those questionable calls by the refs spoiled what was an otherwise great game.

“It’s unfortunate because the only way you can beat the Patriots is if you take four of their top offensive players off the field, the officials have their hand in the game, and then you have to have some momentum switch because [Chris Harper] muffs a punt. The officials were calling penalties all over the place, some legit some not so legit. I feel like the officials last night really let the game get out of control. There were questionable calls, especially the offensive pass interference on Gronkowski. The holding in the end zone on Chung was very questionable,” said Boomer. “It seemed liked the entire fourth quarter there was a yellow flag on the field, and when it was thrown it was against the Patriots. The whole thing was spiraling out of control.

“Even with all that happen, Tom Brady still got the team back for the game-tying field goal by Gostkowski,” added Boomer, who said Brady played one of his best games of the season despite not having most of his top receivers. “For whatever reason, after the muffed punt, the whole game went south for the Patriots.”


http://boston.cbslocal.com/2015/11/30/esiason-blasts-nfl-officials-for-letting-pats-broncos-spiral-out-of-control/
 

Gunfighter 09

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The Gronk and Chung calls were shitty, but more for their context than the actual calls. If the zebras keep the flags in their pocket on either of those calls, which they should have in my perfectly officiated version of the NFL,the Patriots win the game. But those calls happen. My team won on a highly questionable defensive holding call yesterday. Both the OPI and defensive holding are recent points of emphasis that are probably going to get called more than they need to, and in situations where they change the outcome of the game.

The call that I found downright offensive was the non-call on third down after the Gronk OPI where the Denver DB launched himself into Brady's head without a flag. That flies in the face of multiple directives from the NFL as well as endangered the safety of the NFL's marquee star. It was certainly seen by the official who has his eyes on the QB during the play. After that, I honestly wondered how much Correnti and his crew wanted the home team to win and felt something that might loosely be interpreted as sympathy for the Pats, though I repressed those feelings quickly.
 

m0ckduck

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"I feel like the officials last night really let the game get out of control."

“For whatever reason, after the muffed punt, the whole game went south for the Patriots.”


http://boston.cbslocal.com/2015/11/30/esiason-blasts-nfl-officials-for-letting-pats-broncos-spiral-out-of-control/
Interesting— this makes me wonder how much of a psychological tendency there is on the part of weak officiating crews to pile on the road team when a key play goes south for them in a tight game. Crowd roars... narrative starts to build, etc... average-to-bad refs are susceptible to this stuff. I don't know how you'd define the terms exactly, esp. since some players are susceptible to it as well, so it would be hard to isolate the officiating.
 

joe dokes

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Interesting— this makes me wonder how much of a psychological tendency there is on the part of weak officiating crews to pile on the road team when a key play goes south for them in a tight game. Crowd roars... narrative starts to build, etc... average-to-bad refs are susceptible to this stuff. I don't know how you'd define the terms exactly, esp. since some players are susceptible to it as well, so it would be hard to isolate the officiating.
I think there are several studies out there purporting to show that referee home team bias is real across many sports. I can't speak to the scientific rigor of those studies.
 

Byrdbrain

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Reiss, as usual, with excellent analysis of this exact discussion.
So based on this analysis of the 6 OPIs called against Gronk, 3 were ticky tack and shouldn't have been called(including both last night, the first one wasn't nearly as critical but the call itself was at least as bad), 1 was borderline and could easily have not been called and 2 were completely legit and should have been called.
 

m0ckduck

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I think there are several studies out there purporting to show that referee home team bias is real across many sports. I can't speak to the scientific rigor of those studies.
Yeah, for sure. Esiason's comments just made me wonder how much a specific 'turning point' play could be the trigger for this-- like, from the refs' standpoint: 'we've called the game fairly straight up to this point, but now that the road team just muffed a punt and everyone's screaming and it feels like the home team should start winning now, our flags are practically coming out of our pockets on their own in favor of the home team.'

Not that Boomer Esiason is some sort of psychological guru.
 

drbretto

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The officiating is one of the reasons I had such a hard time caring about football most of my life. I never liked that any play can just be negated at any time like that, especially when it's so inconsistent. And unless it's a safety issue, unless it genuinely affected the play, it shouldn't be called, or at least should negate the whole play. If it's an obvious penalty that doesn't affect the actual outcome, throw on some yards after the play, but gently touching someone in a way that looks like holding shouldn't negate a 60 yard pass.
 

McBride11

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The refs have been discussed ad nauseum. Id rather them let them play and be consistent then what happened last night. I, like many others, had a small meltdown in the gamethread. A lot of the Broncos holding happen all the time in the NFL. Happens. BUT when crappy ticky tack stuff is called the other way it sucks. Let em both play. I understand the 'rules are the rules' but maybe sometimes interpreting the 'spirit of the rule' would be better. For example, thinking of all these 'what's a catch' questions these days. People who watch football generally know what a catch is when they see it, unless you're judging like a toe tap or if the ball actually slipped through someone's hands to hit the ground. Dez's playoff catch or Bryant's overturned catch yesterday for the Steelers yesterday. Both things at first glance everyone would say are catches. But they are looking too literally at the rules and it takes away from the general idea of the game.
 

djbayko

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...The call that I found downright offensive was the non-call on third down after the Gronk OPI where the Denver DB launched himself into Brady's head without a flag...
The one that I find offensive is the roughing the kicker non-call. It didn't have a huge impact, but it should like never ever happen.

As much as I hate the holding and the PI calls / non-calls, shit is going to happen sometimes when there are 22 athletic freaks on the field. There is too much to watch and with the pace of play, sometimes you're going to miss things. But I mean, it's someone's job to watch the kick, right?
 

crystalline

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The Gronk and Chung calls were shitty, but more for their context than the actual calls. If the zebras keep the flags in their pocket on either of those calls, which they should have in my perfectly officiated version of the NFL,the Patriots win the game. But those calls happen. My team won on a highly questionable defensive holding call yesterday. Both the OPI and defensive holding are recent points of emphasis that are probably going to get called more than they need to, and in situations where they change the outcome of the game.

The call that I found downright offensive was the non-call on third down after the Gronk OPI where the Denver DB launched himself into Brady's head without a flag. That flies in the face of multiple directives from the NFL as well as endangered the safety of the NFL's marquee star. It was certainly seen by the official who has his eyes on the QB during the play. After that, I honestly wondered how much Correnti and his crew wanted the home team to win and felt something that might loosely be interpreted as sympathy for the Pats, though I repressed those feelings quickly.
Yes.

Also the running into the kicker call. Did the ref assigned to watch the kicker not see that? That call wasn't worth much, as their conservative strategy last night probably wouldn't have them going for fourth and three.



Agreed the Chung hold call is called 50% of the time in the modern NFL.
But to add to this was the Nink non-call at the end of the first half. Holding, right at the point of attack, where the held player was going to make the tackle.
And the same: McCourty on the winning TD.
Plus an egregious hold on Jones in the 4th Q, clearly visible from the endzone view behind Osweiler.



The two roughing calls have an objective standard, and should have been called. The other calls could each be argued individually, and it was the appalling lack of consistency that hurt the Pats.

Edit: as djbayko said
 
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Eddie Jurak

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The Gronk and Chung calls were shitty, but more for their context than the actual calls. If the zebras keep the flags in their pocket on either of those calls, which they should have in my perfectly officiated version of the NFL,the Patriots win the game. But those calls happen. My team won on a highly questionable defensive holding call yesterday. Both the OPI and defensive holding are recent points of emphasis that are probably going to get called more than they need to, and in situations where they change the outcome of the game.
What bothered me was the one-sidedness. Let 'em play, or call it tight, but don't let Denver play while making borderline calls against the Pats. If you are going to make the weak PI on Chung call, then you can't let Denver commit real interference on Lafell in OT, you can't let them "block" Chandler Jones by grabbing his mask.
 

E5 Yaz

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Wilbon (no NE apologist) said on PTI that the Patriots "got hosed" by the officiating
 

Reggie's Racquet

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The officiating is one of the reasons I had such a hard time caring about football most of my life. I never liked that any play can just be negated at any time like that, especially when it's so inconsistent. And unless it's a safety issue, unless it genuinely affected the play, it shouldn't be called, or at least should negate the whole play. If it's an obvious penalty that doesn't affect the actual outcome, throw on some yards after the play, but gently touching someone in a way that looks like holding shouldn't negate a 60 yard pass.
Bad and inconsistent officiating is why I dropped out of team based sports in college. I played basketball and became so frustrated by the incompetence of the referees that I took up sports where there was minimal refereeing. Tennis and better yet Epee Fencing. Fencing was simple. The ref said go and the first one to five touches wins. Touches were registered electronically from the tip of the weapon. No referee judgement.
 

OCST

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I've kicked around an idea of a panel of refs that watch the game on TV in real time and relay the call down to an official on the field.

It seems clear to me that if you get a large number of knowledgeable fans watching a game, they usually arrive at a consensus of the "correct" call in near-real-time (assuming neutrality).

My prototype for the system would be something like-

-A head ref and 3 assistant refs on the field

-9 refs, with full referee training, watching the game in real time, with setups that let them choose from a variety of camera angles

-the 9 video refs cannot talk to each other

-video refs are offsite or insulated from crowd, to minimize crowd influence

-any of the field refs or video refs can throw a flag or make q ruling (out of bounds, catch/no catch, TD/no TD, FG/no FG, whatever)

-the calls are made in near real time, i.e. after seeing the play live and maybe 1-2 replays- as if watching a broadcast

-consensus of the video refs carries the day- ie if only 3 video refs call a hold on the left tackle, then no penalty, but if 8 do, then the penalty is assessed

-challenges handled as per current system

There would be a lot of details to work out, but this is essentially what happens whenever people gather to watch a game, including game threads- there are always disagreements, always outlier opinions, but in most cases the group gets to a consensus quickly on the video evidence, and the consensus is usually correct.

Fun to kick around. It could work.
 
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glennhoffmania

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I've kicked around an idea of a panel of refs that watch the game on TV in real time and relay the call down to an official on the field.

It seems clear to me that if you get a large number of knowledgeable fans watching a game, they usually arrive at a consensus of the "correct" call in near-real-time (assuming neutrality).

My prototype for the system would be something like-

-A head ref and 3 assistant refs on the field

-9 refs, with full referee training, watching the game in real time, with setups that let them choose from a variety of camera angles

-the 9 video refs cannot talk to each other

-video refs are offsite or insulated from crowd, to minimize crowd influence

-any of the field refs or video refs can throw a flag or make q ruling (out of bounds, catch/no catch, TD/no TD, FG/no FG, whatever)

-the calls are made in near real time, i.e. after seeing the play live and maybe 1-2 replays- as if watching a broadcast

-consensus of the video refs carries the day- ie if only 3 video refs call a hold on the left tackle, then no penalty, but if 8 do, then the penalty is assessed

-challenges handled as per current system

There would be a lot of details to work out, but this is essentially what happens whenever people gather to watch a game, including game threads- there are always disagreements, always outlier opinions, but in most cases the group gets to a consensus quickly on the video evidence, and the consensus is usually correct.

Fun to kick around. It could work.
This may sound good in theory but it would make games 8 hours long. The video refs would have to watch multiple replays every play to see the whole field. What if there was an obvious hold that the field refs didn't call but most of the video refs were focusing on a down field pass in real time, and the broadcast replay showed that part of the field instead of the line of scrimmage? I think the officiating is horrible but I'm also tired of the countless long stoppages in play and extra commercial breaks.

I think the best solution is to add more on-field refs and have higher standards and more training for them. If they make a certain amount of egregious errors, they're done.
 

OCST

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This may sound good in theory but it would make games 8 hours long. The video refs would have to watch multiple replays every play to see the whole field. What if there was an obvious hold that the field refs didn't call but most of the video refs were focusing on a down field pass in real time, and the broadcast replay showed that part of the field instead of the line of scrimmage? I think the officiating is horrible but I'm also tired of the countless long stoppages in play and extra commercial breaks.
The idea would be to do it at the speed of the broadcast that viewers at home see. Of course there are many reasons why it would be difficult/impossible to implement. I'm just riffing on the idea that a group of educated fans, watching in real time, will usually arrive quickly at a consensus as to the right call after seeing it live and after 1-2 replays.
 

Stitch01

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Refs blew at least one call on the blocked fg last night and possibly the returner stepped out of bounds as well.
 

glennhoffmania

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dcmissle

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Wilbon (no NE apologist) said on PTI that the Patriots "got hosed" by the officiating
And less visibly, the officiating went far to costing the Titans their Sunday, as the League admitted yesterday. And that was not the first time this year.

I'd actually prefer the 1970s and 80s to the current regime. As it is, attending a game takes away almost an entire Sunday, 7 hours from the house and back. There is no way I'm attending games that routinely last 4 and a half hours.
 

DJnVa

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I don't think it matters if they saw it or not...


Edit: Seahawks at Lions - K.J. Wright batting the ball out of the end zone.
Back judge in picture: Greg Wilson (although profootballreference calls him Doug Wilson). After this game he was reassigned from his crew, because his crew's next game was the high profile Patriots-Colts game.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/10/14/nfl-reassigns-lions-seahawks-back-judge-away-from-sunday-night-football/

He's part of Tony Corrente's crew and but is back with his crew now. This weekend they were in Denver. Where he made a call in the end zone on Chung.
 

edmunddantes

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Someone finally did it. They put the Chung and Gronk plays side by side.

One of these is DPI, and one of these is OPI. LoL

 

mostman

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The idea would be to do it at the speed of the broadcast that viewers at home see. Of course there are many reasons why it would be difficult/impossible to implement. I'm just riffing on the idea that a group of educated fans, watching in real time, will usually arrive quickly at a consensus as to the right call after seeing it live and after 1-2 replays.
I think his point on making the game 8 hours long was bringing up the fact that you would have a ton of flags thrown. A slight modification (and maybe your intention) would be that no flag thrown at all if there is no consensus. In other words, 3 of the video judges are assigned to specifically watch the line, 2 have to push the button for a flag to be thrown. The issue here is that they may see different holds, thus breaking the concept.

This is an interesting idea, but would likely cost a fortune to implement. And when it broke, things would be real bad.
 

86spike

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The call that I found downright offensive was the non-call on third down after the Gronk OPI where the Denver DB launched himself into Brady's head without a flag. That flies in the face of multiple directives from the NFL as well as endangered the safety of the NFL's marquee star. It was certainly seen by the official who has his eyes on the QB during the play. After that, I honestly wondered how much Correnti and his crew wanted the home team to win and felt something that might loosely be interpreted as sympathy for the Pats, though I repressed those feelings quickly.
Are you talking about this play?



If they had flagged that I would not have freaked out and screamed about ref conspiracies, but I don't think he touched Brady's head at all.

Barrett is jumping up to try to block the pass (his left arm is reaching up to try to tip the ball) and as his momentum carries him into Brady, he rolls to his left and his right arm is around Brady's shoulder. He lands not on Brady, but on the ground and rolls backwards off of the QB away from harming him. At full speed it looked like a pile driver, but Barrett actually did little more than knock Brady down, not slam on top of him or into his head as it first appeared.

Yes, he was up high so a flag could have been thrown, but I don't think he touched his helmet at all and the entire play was the result of him leaping for the pass.

It's a borderline call, IMO.

As for the Chung holding call on Demaryius Thomas, look at the replay:



I imagine the ref saw both of Chung's hands on Thomas (right before Thomas makes the cut to his right) and then saw Thomas' momentum slowed and his shoulders turn when he cuts. He also slips (most likely due to the snow) and the sum of those parts looked like holding to the ref and he tossed his flag.

Plays like that go unflagged often too. But I can see the moment the ref considered it a penalty pretty clearly. Also bear in mind that the ref throwing the flag wasn't watching the sack happen 30 yards away, so his awareness of the impact of his call on the game action is limited solely to the WR/S matchup. Yeah, it was a big momentum swing for Denver, but it's impossible to expect the refs to not only watch the game action they are assigned to but whatever is happening elsewhere on the field and take that into consideration in a snap decision.

Both of these are borderline calls. They went in favor of the home team. That dynamic happens 5 times in every game in the NFL.
 

soxhop411

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Rob Gronkowski ‏@RobGronkowski 9m9 minutes ago
Agree https://twitter.com/985thesportshub/status/671691007457538054…

I assume Gronk runs his own account

98.5 The Sports Hub ‏@985TheSportsHub 2h2 hours ago
#NFL is 'absolutely' targeting Rob Gronkowski w/ OPI calls: @JeffPHowe on @Toucherandrich http://boston.cbslocal.com/2015/12/01/patriots-gronkowski-targeted-nfl-toucher-and-rich/?cid=twitter_985thesportshub… pic.twitter.com/RDlN091LWH



The Boston Herald’s Jeff Howe joined 98.5 The Sports Hub’s Toucher & Richon Tuesday, and said it’s pretty clear the NFL has made it a point to target the Patriots tight end this season.

“There is no question about that. There is not even a debate, especially after that fourth quarter OPI called on Sunday. That closed the book on that debate; they are going after Rob Gronowski,” said Howe. “He didn’t even initiate the contact and was penalized on that play. That was the worst penalty, up there with the Malcolm Butler PI [against the Giants]. Those are the two worst penalties I’ve seen called this season against the Patriots.”
While some Patriots fans feel there is a much deeper conspiracy at work, given how the league went after the Patriots during the offseason, Howe has a tough time buying that. But he doesn’t fault Patriots fans for feeling that way, especially after they had to stomach the Gronkowski OPI and a horrendous holding call on Patrick Chung later in the fourth quarter on Sunday.

“Maybe there is something out there. How can you say those are unfair things to think after the way the NFL targeted this team? The other side is the officiating has been such a horror show all season long, and you probably have every other team in the league who can point to certain instances and say the officials bagged the game for them,” said Howe. “The conspiracy theory is a tough one to subscribe to, but I think it’s absolutely legitimate when you look at the way they’re targeting Gronk.”
 
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WayBackVazquez

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You don't think he touched his head at all? I get that the replay angle doesn't show the contact there, but I don't think it's even scientifically possible that he didn't.
 

Silverdude2167

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Both of these are borderline calls. They went in favor of the home team. That dynamic happens 5 times in every game in the NFL.
I have no issue with the no call on roughing the passer. But if you are going to call that DPI, why wasn't it called in OT on Talib, which was much worse.

And why wasn't hands to the face called on the Broncos go ahead touchdown after calling it on the Pats earlier?

This wasn't a few calls going in favor of the home team. This was almost every call going in the home team's favor, and occurring whenever the Pats made a big play in the 4th quarter.
 

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Are you talking about this play?


I imagine the ref saw both of Chung's hands on Thomas (right before Thomas makes the cut to his right) and then saw Thomas' momentum slowed and his shoulders turn when he cuts. He also slips (most likely due to the snow) and the sum of those parts looked like holding to the ref and he tossed his flag.

Plays like that go unflagged often too. But I can see the moment the ref considered it a penalty pretty clearly. Also bear in mind that the ref throwing the flag wasn't watching the sack happen 30 yards away, so his awareness of the impact of his call on the game action is limited solely to the WR/S matchup. Yeah, it was a big momentum swing for Denver, but it's impossible to expect the refs to not only watch the game action they are assigned to but whatever is happening elsewhere on the field and take that into consideration in a snap decision.

Both of these are borderline calls. They went in favor of the home team. That dynamic happens 5 times in every game in the NFL.
I respect your football acumen, but I cannot disagree more here regarding the second call (on the first I think you're 100% right). Thomas pushed off against Chung and Chung held on for 1/2 a second after the push off. Thomas grabbed Chung's facemask too. That's either no penalty or OPI. It cannot be considered defensive holding in any way. It's pretty damn clear on the replay.

That's a garbage call by a garbage ref clearly favoring the home team (I don't think he's a Broncos fan, but he's giving the home team a non-givable call) at the key juncture of the contest, and that's unacceptable for the league. It doesn't matter "oh well you can see why he made the call." IT'S THE WRONG CALL AND IT SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN MADE. FULL STOP.

The officials cannot keep up with the speed of the players any longer. Combine that with a rule book thicker than a King James Bible, and you can see why the game is becoming absolutely unwatchable.
 
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LESDL

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I imagine the ref saw both of Chung's hands on Thomas (right before Thomas makes the cut to his right) and then saw Thomas' momentum slowed and his shoulders turn when he cuts. He also slips (most likely due to the snow) and the sum of those parts looked like holding to the ref and he tossed his flag.
It also looks as if he pushes Chung right below his left armpit- this is the movement of his shoulder and arm, right before the further turn of the shoulder with Chung's hand. Chung's left leg goes up as his body is shoved. At least that's what I see. This call could also have been called OPI.
 

Stitch01

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Yeah, any argument that the refereeing in Sunday;s game was just normal course pro home team officiating is disingenuous. Count me out of the grand conspiracy argument, but that was a terribly officiated game heavily in favor of the Broncos well outside the terrible officiating norm. The Chung call by itself swung win equity by a half of a win and is completely indefensible given how the game was called.

That's not to take credit away from the Broncos. They won the game and made plays, but officiating really hurt the Pats.
 

soxhop411

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Gronk in essence is calling out the NFL (or as close to calling out the NFL as you can get). We rarely see that from a Patriot player/coach
 

soxhop411

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They'd run out of crews.
well then hire competent refs... Its the same as in MLB, Joe West should have been fired years ago... If you keep screwing up you should be fired ( and you would be fired in just about any other job in the world)
 

edmunddantes

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And completely indefensible when compared to the Gronk OPI call (even if you leave out the illegal hands to Chungs facemask)
 

DJnVa

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Are you talking about this play?



If they had flagged that I would not have freaked out and screamed about ref conspiracies, but I don't think he touched Brady's head at all.

Barrett is jumping up to try to block the pass (his left arm is reaching up to try to tip the ball) and as his momentum carries him into Brady, he rolls to his left and his right arm is around Brady's shoulder. He lands not on Brady, but on the ground and rolls backwards off of the QB away from harming him. At full speed it looked like a pile driver, but Barrett actually did little more than knock Brady down, not slam on top of him or into his head as it first appeared.
Two things:

1--He doesn't have to touch his head. It's "head or neck area".
2--Why he jumped doesn't mean anything.
 

edmunddantes

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Also, not sure how the Ref's move around the field, but what are the chances the same Ref made both calls actually? It's certainly possible considering both happened on the same side of the field if Refs just stay on the same sidelines and just flip over the line of scrimmage when possession changes.
 

BaseballJones

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Someone finally did it. They put the Chung and Gronk plays side by side.

One of these is DPI, and one of these is OPI. LoL

This is what is so frustrating. There is no way Gronk's actions are "worse" than Thomas'. That is, Gronk's is not any more obviously OPI than Thomas'. So many calls in football are judgment calls that are bang-bang plays, and the inconsistency is infuriating. Of course, it doesn't help that seemingly every single call in the 4th quarter and OT went against the Patriots.

Not counting non-calls (like the non-holding call on the game-winning TD, the non-holding call on the pass to LaFell in OT, etc.), here were all the penalties in the 4th quarter and OT:

NE 1-10, NE 20 - (12:34) (Shotgun) T.Brady pass incomplete deep right to S.Chandler (B.Marshall). PENALTY on NE-S.Vollmer, Illegal Use of Hands, 10 yards, enforced at NE 20 - No Play.

NE 3-11, NE 19 - (11:40) (Shotgun) T.Brady pass deep left to K.Martin to DEN 30 for 51 yards (C.Harris) [V.Miller]. PENALTY on NE-T.Jackson, Offensive Holding, 9 yards, enforced at NE 19 - No Play.

NE 3rd and 5, NE 25 - (5:22) (Shotgun) T.Brady pass short right to R.Gronkowski pushed ob at NE 35 for 10 yards (D.Bruton). PENALTY on NE-R.Gronkowski, Offensive Pass Interference, 10 yards, enforced at NE 25 - No Play.

Den 2-7, NE 7 - (1:25) (Shotgun) B.Osweiler sacked at NE 15 for -8 yards (A.Branch). PENALTY on NE-P.Chung, Defensive Holding, 3 yards, enforced at NE 7 - No Play.

NE 1-10, Den 48 - (0:15) (Shotgun) T.Brady pass incomplete short middle to C.Harper (D.Bruton). PENALTY on DEN-C.Harris, Defensive Holding, 5 yards, enforced at DEN 48 - No Play.

So 5 penalties called in the 4th quarter and OT. Four of them went against NE. The Vollmer play was legit. But that same play was made against Chandler Jones by a Denver OLineman and it wasn't called. The holding call on Jackson on the bomb to Martin was so ricky-tack even Collinsworth was like....eh....I don't know about that. And again, Vernon Davis had a MUCH more egregious hold against McCourty on the game-winning TD run that was not called. The Gronk OPI was a joke. The Chung hold was a joke. The hold on Harris was obvious.

So the weight of the calls was clearly against NE in huge spots. The Gronk call or the Jackson call or the Chung call - any of those doesn't get called and the Pats almost certainly win the game. I don't necessarily mind them being called, but then you HAVE to call the same thing on Denver. Which they really didn't.
 

glennhoffmania

meat puppet
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I think his point on making the game 8 hours long was bringing up the fact that you would have a ton of flags thrown.
That's part of it. It's also that it would take some time to let them see enough replays to be able to decide on every play. The broadcast doesn't show us replays of the entire field after each play because we'd miss the next play. If they adopted OCST's plan they'd have to slow things down to allow the video refs enough time to judge each play fairly. Otherwise the available replays would be pretty random from play to play and wouldn't really solve the problem.

I like the general idea of the plan and the officiating definitely needs improvement. I'm just not sure this could ever be viable.
 

86spike

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I respect your football acumen, but I cannot disagree more here regarding the second call (on the first I think you're 100% right). Thomas pushed off against Chung and Chung held on for 1/2 a second after the push off. Thomas grabbed Chung's facemask too. That's either no penalty or OPI. It cannot be considered defensive holding in any way. It's pretty damn clear on the replay.

That's a garbage call by a garbage ref clearly favoring the home team (I don't think he's a Broncos fan, but he's giving the home team a non-givable call) at the key juncture of the contest, and that's unacceptable for the league. It doesn't matter "oh well you can see why he made the call." IT'S THE WRONG CALL AND IT SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN MADE. FULL STOP.

The officials cannot keep up with the speed of the players any longer. Combine that with a rule book thicker than a King James Bible, and you can see why the game is becoming absolutely unwatchable.
I can see the argument for both OPI and Defensive Holding... my point above was to illustrate what I suspect the ref saw in real time. two hands on DT for a second followed by DT making a cut, slipping a bit and his shoulders shifting. I guess I'm arguing that it wasn't a "phantom call" with no basis in reality. I'm not arguing that it was the right call. I'm just saying the replay shows what the ref was most likely thinking in the heat of action.

I 100% agree with the bolded and think it's the heart of the problem. Bad calls are made every week and some of them have major impacts on the outcomes. I think the game is now too fast and the rules are too convoluted for the officials to handle. Maybe the league should spend a year+ re-writing the rule book to completely simplify things instead of the current approach of just adding more rules on top of the existing ones for every desired change. It's like the fucking IRS tax code at this point.

It also looks as if he pushes Chung right below his left armpit- this is the movement of his shoulder and arm, right before the further turn of the shoulder with Chung's hand. Chung's left leg goes up as his body is shoved. At least that's what I see. This call could also have been called OPI.
You get no argument from me that the flag could have gone against NE or against Denver, or stayed in the refs pocket.
 

Jed Zeppelin

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Aug 23, 2008
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The officials cannot keep up with the speed of the players any longer. Combine that with a rule book thicker than a King James Bible, and you can see why the game is becoming absolutely unwatchable.
I think it's imperative that the league begin to de-emphasize the penalties in the secondary. I'd wager these are the calls most often made in error because they're the toughest to judge in real time.

Illegal contact is just a dumb penalty, period. Get rid of it. It was birthed in bitterness by an old man with a soft team. Handchecks and light brushes are regularly giving teams first downs. That's unacceptable, as is the league trying to balance it out with an equally dumb and arbitrary emphasis on OPI.

Defensive Holding is fine, sure it can be screwed up too but it's close enough to being an objective offense. Jersey in the hand hindering movement. Fine.

DPI is always going to be tough because there are many times an actual infraction does prevent a touchdown/long completion, but the Flacco Special sucks. Maybe make it a spot foul but with a max of 25 yards or something like that. You can never get rid of the bad calls, but they would no longer hand a team 6 points after a wild 3 and 18 heave from their own 40.
 

Stitch01

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Jul 15, 2005
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Sure. Like all the borderline calls in big spots this game it went in the Broncos favor, but that has been called holding in other spots this year, agreed.