You surely have a sweet soul, Ray
... to believe that those calls and non-calls were
honest, innocent ineptitude.
Those particular calls and the Moss ones were terrible. I'm trying to separate that from a problem I noticed with Hobbs from the get go.
Though they misinterpreted a rule on Hobbs call last year, he looked totally out of control on the play and that is going to draw the attention of the refs.
Second point. Do I think there is a conspiracy by the refs to corruptly call against the Patriots versus Colts? No and Yes.
I don't think the refs are taking cash payments to make calls against the Patriots, if that is what you are implying.
However, there is such a thing as public relations and politics in football as there is in life. Who doesn't know ass-kissers and whiners who get the promotions while you do all the work (seemingly).
There is an aspect to being a coach of a football team dealing with public and media relations and image projection and Belichick is miserable at it. For someone who is a great human being, in my opinion, he couldn't come off as a more detestable, mean spirited guy in the publics perception and it is his fault.
There's a little boys club called the competition committee comprised of all the whiners and ass-kissing losers in the league. Unfortunately, the head rat is the GM of a team that is not a loser, in fact they are the reigning champs. Now that they've installed Dudley-Doright as commissioner we'd better get Stacy James or somebody to start schmoozing and weaving some PR unless we can get our coach a personality transplant.
Refs are human and watch TV like the rest of us. If BB is on a mission to have every media and failed football guy like Casserly hate his guts, all the coverage is going to be like Casserly explaining how Moss pushes off on every play and if you don't think that sinks in to the refs after a while, you don't know human nature.