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Thats what made them stand out. It reminds me of the officiating the year after deflate gate when brady was appealing godells sanctions.At the most critical times.
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CLICK HERE to Register for a free account and login for a smoother ad-free experience. It's easy, and only takes a few moments.Thats what made them stand out. It reminds me of the officiating the year after deflate gate when brady was appealing godells sanctions.At the most critical times.
I have seen it called before but it is rare.
There were many holds by Pitt that were not called.this was such a poorly called game that i eventually stopped watching.
Like the look at a steeler? that's a pass interference
Tackle a patriot before the ball gets there? no flag.
There was a homefield bias last night so i hope that ref group isn't part of the playoffs.
The reffs could call penalties on every play, yesterday and for the last 4-5 weeks they've chosen to call the vast majority on the patriots. Yesterday was the latest example.
The defender has to actually cross the LOS. “Moving toward the line” isn’t encroachment.I thought, though, if a defensive player encroaches and an offensive player reacts to that, it’s a penalty on the defense. I could have sworn on one of the false starts, a Pittsburgh defensive lineman moved toward the line, an o-lineman came out of his stance and it was a penalty on NE.
It’s obvious the refs were in Rooney’s pocket
I remember the play your talking about eg the pitt defensive play moves foward and the pats 0-lineman came out of his stance and i agree with you.. i can't remember the term for the penalty, but in that case the defense should have been called for the penalty , not the offense. I agree also that its almost impossible for the pitt offense not to have committed a penalty on those tosses. Ive come to the conclusion that the league is sick of seeing the pats in the afccg or the sb.I can’t argue with the delay of game or false start penalties. Those are pretty clear. I thought, though, if a defensive player encroaches and an offensive player reacts to that, it’s a penalty on the defense. I could have sworn on one of the false starts, a Pittsburgh defensive lineman moved toward the line, an o-lineman came out of his stance and it was a penalty on NE.
With the holding penalties, I was thinking of Trent Brown’s that wiped out a good run by Michel. Michel was running past a Steelers lineman that Brown was engaged with. Brown had a grip on the guy’s shoulder pads and prevented him from lunging or diving at Michel. What I wonder is, the Steelers ran that toss play that started to the offense’s right and then the runner cut back left maybe 10 times. Each time, the Patriots defenders would follow the initial direction of the play and then try to reverse field to follow the RB. Is it believable that holding by a Steelers lineman didn’t occur on any of those plays?
I agree with pretty much everything everyone has written in this thread, but will go further and say the officiating absolutely made the difference in the outcome of the game. . . .
I am no lawyer but it seems to me that if the right questions were asked under oath to enough people, it would be possible to get proof that Goodell had a hand in some of these games being crookedly officiated. Again, I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me that if such proof could be made, that he would be guilty of collusion.
A simple play-by-play analysis of the entire game to see how many holding penalties were committed by the Steelers but not called, for one example, or how many PI/defensive holding penalties were committed by their secondary (but not called) for another, would be difficult at best, I would think, for the league to defend.
. . .
If the Pats could pressure Big Ben, then maybe their O linemen might need to hold....but...as we have watched for the past several years, NE's front 4 likes to lock up with their counterpart and look busy. Don't need to hold when there is no legit threat.
I agree 100% about players on the team that's not being called for penalties adjusting and taking advantage, i.e. intentionally ignoring the rules. I would add that anyone with any common sense at all can understand that when a game is officiated thusly, it's nearly impossible for the team at the short end of the bias to win.The other thing you and others don't mention is that once they learned the ref's level of tolerance for squeelers "rule breaking", they kept doing it to that level: evidence is the block in the back in consecutive punts. The second one was blatantly obvious and IIRC the same guy. The holding was ridiculous and the face masking that was going on was particularly disgusting (rapistburger even hot into it).
Careful about throwing around term collusion. I don't think "collusion" is a CRIME, in and of itself. Media today wants to use it that way to make select individuals sound like they are being accused of criminal acts, without identifying anything criminal. You have to be colluding to fix prices or limit competition (commerce) or fix games (sport and gambling) or some other crime.
I agree 100% about players on the team that's not being called for penalties adjusting and taking advantage, i.e. intentionally ignoring the rules. I would add that anyone with any common sense at all can understand that when a game is officiated thusly, it's nearly impossible for the team at the short end of the bias to win.
Regarding my use of the term collusion, if Goodell, or someone working for him, instructed the refs to call the game tighter on us than on the Steelers, that in and of itself is an attempt to fix the game, and an attempt that is usually going to succeed, as it did Sunday. I think, too, that a pattern of fixing games would be more damning than just one instance; the latter can be explained away as accidental or by chance, the former not so much. Considering that this has happened a few different times now just in the last three years, I personally believe there's ample evidence, if only someone took the time to uncover it, to put Goodell in the pen for a while. I think it was the Denver game in 2015 when multiple national commentators that normally never mention officiating at all were commenting openly the next day that the refs had been working for the Broncos - Bayless said as much if I recall correctly, and I think Cowherd did as well.
If this were church league softball that involved a couple dozen people, no judge would even hear the case; but this is billions of dollars and hundreds of millions of people that are in play. Goodell is arrogant enough to think he can do anything he likes and no one will dare question him on it; odds are that sooner or later it will come to light; we can only hope it might be sooner.
I like Voinovich.I was a big fan of Steratore, thought he generally officiated very well.
Recently I've liked Ron Torbert. He's articulate, calm, and seemingly in control of the game. His calls seem fair, consistent and sensible. Wish he called more games for the Pats.
The other thing you and others don't mention is that once they learned the ref's level of tolerance for squeelers "rule breaking", they kept doing it to that level:
You make a great point that somehow no one high up in the NFL could have enough of a basic understanding of science to comprehend that gases are affected by temperature.I’ve suspected a plot like this for about four years now. I mean, sometimes a ref team will make calls a little different but when you have so many instances of really blatant bias in the way penalties are called, it makes you wonder.
I mean that and the fact the nfl would rather reinvent physics in order to steal draft picks and suspend and humiliate our goat qb. That was kinda my first clue that something in Denmark is rotten. I refuse to believe that people with far more education than me making 30 million a year would not understand these concepts. So, by defenition, there’s a conspiracy of some kind.