Same old Lions…officiating problems on national televison
Ok, I've had a night of not so great sleep and some tossing and turning to think it over. It's just not surprising anymore. The Detroit Lions played hard on Saturday night against a team that had won the last 15 straight games at home. They won the game. It's as simple as that. At […]
Ok, I've had a night of not so great sleep and some tossing and turning to think it over. It's just not surprising anymore. The Detroit Lions played hard on Saturday night against a team that had won the last 15 straight games at home. They won the game. It's as simple as that. At least it should be. Instead it was once again an example of incompetent officiating that ruined the night for the Lions. It happens all the time and it seems to keep happening when the whole country is watching.
Think about all your favorite moments that the officials have ruined for the Lions in front of everyone. The 2014 playoffs when the Lions played the Cowboys in Dallas and Anthony Hitchens commits the most routine and blatant pass interference you've ever seen. Something that gets called multiple times a week. Then out of nowhere the flag gets picked up becasue the officials say Brandon Pettigrew face guard Hitchens. Has anyone seen face guarding called since then? Maybe you have, I can't say that I have.
Fast forward to Monday Night Football in Seattle. Calvin Johnson fumbles in the end zone and the ball goes out of the back. That's normal right? It even happened in last nights game. The only problem here is that Seahawks linebacker K.J. Wright is the reason the ball goes out of bounds because he batted it out of the end zone directly in front of an official. That should have given the ball back to the Lions on the goal line with a first down. Instead that ended the game for the Lions.
To the Playoffs against Seattle. Seahawks receiver Paul Richardson makes a spectacular one handed catch in the end zone for a touchdown. The problem is that his other hand was firmly on Tavon Wilson's facemask and he was using it to push himself up higher. He pushed so hard that Wilson's helmet was sideways. No flag was thrown. This was Brad Allen's crew. The same crew that officiated Saturday night's game.
Let's go to a Thursday night game against the Packers. Devin Taylor gets a game winning sack on Aaron Rodgers and the Lions complete their first regular season sweep of the Packers in a long time. Except that's not what happened. The officials called Taylor for a facemask on Rodgers. The replay very clearly shows that Taylor grabbed onto Rodgers shoulder and never even grazed his facemask. The Packers got another shot with the ball and they threw a game winning Hail Mary.
Then there's Saturday night. You know, I really thought this kind of thing was over for the Lions and we weren't going to see it again. Yet here we are on New Years Eve and we're talking about it again. For the first time, Dan Campbell had to go through something that Jim Schwartz, Jim Caldwell and Matt Patricia all had to experience while coaching the Lions. A horrific loss that came at the hands of some bad officiating.
You can go on and say that if the Lions played better throughout the night, they wouldn't have put themselves in this situation, but that's dumb to me. If the Lions could blow this team out, they would have just done that. They couldn't. Only one team has shown that they can. This is a Cowboys team that's pretty good. You go out there and you get done what you can get done. The Lions did that for 60 minutes and had a chance to win the game. Then it was taken away from them. When is this going to stop happening? When is this going to stop happening in front of everyone?
Officiating crew from Lions controversial loss reportedly expected to face punishment
Here's a breath of fresh air for the NFL. A very small breath of fresh air. I'm talking so small that you might want to put a respirator on for this. The crew is reportedly expected to face some punishment from the NFL in the form of they will be downgraded and out for the […]
