The blown whistle play might not have been a huge gain

One thing that's not being talked about is why the hell the Line Judge was so far out of bounds in the first place. I mean that ref was ON the Bills sideline a good yard away from the white chalk. Correct me if I'm wrong, but he doesn't belong that far out of bounds in the first place. I believe he was the one that blew the whistle and the one Rex apparently interfered with. He probably shouldn't have been where he was, and that caused the problem...or largely contributed to a part of it at least.

The refs were horrible in this game.

And Rex never blocked that ref's view of Brady throwing that ball while still in the field of play at all...not at all. The guy just decided to blow the whistle for his own reasons

I think the result was fair. Equivalent to a completion and a 15 yard run after catch. There's a fair chance that Amendola would have been tackled immediately by his defender, or down field either by the same defender who would have caught him, or by the other DB covering the deep receiver who might have shed the Patriot block. The Patriots wound up with decent field position and then failed to convert.

How the refs came to that decision, however, is totally FU'd from a technical perspective. I agree that it was a make up call. Too bad they didn't leave the mike on as in that commercial.

This is an instance where a video review would have hurt us. Still, no excuse for the inadvertent whistle.

bobbutts said:

I hated it in the context of half the fans leaving before the game was over. Seems we're more interested in playing the victim vs. making things difficult for the opponent with noise.
If people aren't able to stay awake for the entire game, give your tickets to a real fan please.

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Pretty harsh judgment on the fans there. I stayed for the whole game and was rewarded with a 4th quarter that took probably 30 minutes longer than it should have and a pretty big traffic jam that resulted in me getting home a little before 2 am. I have to say that 6:30 came around pretty early this morning.

A couple of years ago, a sportswriter asked a player (think it was a Steeler) what he though about all of the empty seats at a Thursday night game. To his credit, the player said the he completely understood - that it's hard for people who have to work the next day to go to the night games. Blame the NFL's unquenchable greed, not the fans.

I thought it was a great crowd last night, really into the game, particularly when the Pats D needed a stop.

Uncle Meat said:

One thing that's not being talked about is why the hell the Line Judge was so far out of bounds in the first place. I mean that ref was ON the Bills sideline a good yard away from the white chalk.

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Probably checking the temperature of the Gatorade.

At any rate, one things is clear: Pats failed to capitalize.

After watching the video I see the following:

1. Line Judge watches Brady throw the Ball.
2. He tries to follow the ball but Rex gets in the way.
3. I think the LJ assumes Brady threw the ball away and blows the call dead.
4. Besides the LJ the nearest official I can see in the video is 20-30 yards past Amendola.

Rex needed to stay out of the freakin way.

I don't think the referees "lied" about whether the ball was caught before or after the whistle rather they made their best judgement. No matter where the ball was placed Rex was getting a 15 yard personal foul penalty either way.

I wonder if Rex will be fined by the league.

Ice_Ice_Brady said:

Confirmation bias - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Well, Sports Science agrees with him. They said the whistle blew 4 tenths of a second before the catch.

Tony2046 said:

After watching the video I see the following:

1. Line Judge watches Brady throw the Ball.
2. He tries to follow the ball but Rex gets in the way.
3. I think the LJ assumes Brady threw the ball away and blows the call dead.
4. Besides the LJ the nearest official I can see in the video is 20-30 yards past Amendola.

Rex needed to stay out of the freakin way.

I don't think the referees "lied" about whether the ball was caught before or after the whistle rather they made their best judgement. No matter where the ball was placed Rex was getting a 15 yard personal foul penalty either way.

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That's what I thought, and I thought that was the reason for the call on Rex.

raduray said:

I wonder if Rex will be fined by the league.

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He should be. The inadvertent whistle is on him.

bobbutts said:

I hated it in the context of half the fans leaving before the game was over. Seems we're more interested in playing the victim vs. making things difficult for the opponent with noise.
If people aren't able to stay awake for the entire game, give your tickets to a real fan please.

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Oh Bob, us real fans were at the game. How come you and all the other "real fans" didn't get a ticket in advance? There were several empty seats around me that probably could have been had on Ticket Exchange or Stubhub. It was friggin freezing and we were looking at the usual 1 hr. parking lot wait plus however long it takes us to drive home, most of us after working all day. I got in just after 2:00 a.m. myself. I stayed until the bitter end because in close games I just cannot look away, but I leave once in a while if the game is in hand and the weather stinks. Believe me, it doesn't make me less of a fan.

Bobsyouruncle said:

Really, think about how fast a ball is moving. Let's say the ball is going 30mph (which is extremely slow, it was probably faster). That's about 44 feet per second. So the last 5 feet of travel is .11 seconds.

I'm not buying the whole thing that the separation was caused by the whistle. 1/10th of a second caused some big change by the CB? Amendola had him beat, the CB gave up after the catch when he had time to react. Maybe he could have caught him but the separation wasn't changed by the whistle. Big catch and run, whistle or not.

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The pass was a bit of a floater and the whistle came when the ball was 5 yards from Amendola, who was waiting for the ball to arrive.

If you watch and listen to the video, you can see the DB straighten up and give up on the play at the moment of the whistle. He was close enough to Amendola to grab him until he did that.

There's also the point that the correct call was to do the play over anyway.

I make a motion to dismiss.

Uncle Meat said:

One thing that's not being talked about is why the hell the Line Judge was so far out of bounds in the first place. I mean that ref was ON the Bills sideline a good yard away from the white chalk. Correct me if I'm wrong, but he doesn't belong that far out of bounds in the first place. I believe he was the one that blew the whistle and the one Rex apparently interfered with. He probably shouldn't have been where he was, and that caused the problem...or largely contributed to a part of it at least.

The refs were horrible in this game.

And Rex never blocked that ref's view of Brady throwing that ball while still in the field of play at all...not at all. The guy just decided to blow the whistle for his own reasons

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The guy was just returning from a few broken ribs and a punctured lung after being run over by a Ratbird player. He was probably getting away as far as possible.

It's too bad the NYJFL can't afford full time refs.

1960Pats said:

It's too bad the NYJFL can't afford full time refs.

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People like to say that, but I've yet to have anyone tell me exactly what they think/expect "full time refs" will do differently. It's not like there are games every day of the week for them to ref and they already spend quite a lot of time on film review.

So precisely how will refs being "full time" give us better officiating?

I think it is wrong to believe that was a sure fire TD or huge gain for Amendola. If the whistle doesn't blow then the Buffalo defender wouldn't have slowed and had a good chance of tackling Amendola.

It's 50/50 whether Amendola would have broken that tackle or not.

Bear in mind the average broadcaster is atrocious. If a guy gets even a finger on a ball, it was "almost an interception." Like catching a 50mph football with two fingers is a routine occurrence.

So sure, it was a guaranteed TD based on the idiots in the booth.

Maybe I don't watch enough football, but it seems these things are happening, to the Patriots, at an alarming rate.

Luckily, the game was won or it would be tough to take...imagine how all the self-righteous haters would have acted. Or, we would have reacted...dark places man, dark place to go.

All is well 10-0.

convertedpatsfan said:

Bear in mind the average broadcaster is atrocious. If a guy gets even a finger on a ball, it was "almost an interception." Like catching a 50mph football with two fingers is a routine occurrence.

So sure, it was a guaranteed TD based on the idiots in the booth.

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I really don't think the bills player was going to tackle him so easily. But booth gruden was laying into Chung for not picking of Taylor on that last drive