Sorry if this has already been posted.
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I immediately said after the opening kick-return touchdown that there was an obvious hold in the hole. Not only was there one hold, but there were 2-3
extremely egregious holds within a couple yards of the returner, just before he broke outside. There is no excuse for none of those being called.
I mean, we all knew the circumstances going into this game and some predicted imbalanced officiating, but this is absolute horsesh*t. Officials should be constantly working on eliminating conscious bias and this was a great opportunity for it. It doesn't matter what the circumstances are around the game; a fair and fundamental expectation of -ALL- fans who choose to invest their time (and sometimes money) in this league, should be unbiased, objective officiating and enforcement of the rules. What a tremendous failure in this regard.
This Patriots team was not good enough to overcome the officiating (at any point this season) but they have suffered multiple calls that ranged from "really bad" to "completely inexplicable". Dugger hold on KR against Minnesota. Henry catch against Minnesota. Cole non-catch against Vegas. Stevenson forward progress against Cincy. "Forward progress" negating fumble against Miami. I'm sure there are some more I'm missing.
Hell, take the Meyers' touchdown catch today as another example. They looked at that play for as looooooooooong as they possibly could, searching for anything that would allow them to overturn the on-field ruling of touchdown. Despite the fact there were two clear and obvious replays showing Meyers' second foot came down inbounds, the NY review room still ultimately settled on "stands as called", as opposed to confirmation. Why was that play not confirmed? One angle showed a poof of black pellets kicking up from the turf, and the other angle (pylon cam) unequivocally showed the second foot touching inbounds. That should have been "confirmed" as called. WTF?
Yes, bad/blown calls are part of the game and always will be. What I find more concerning than the occasional blown call (in real-time) is seeing multiple blown calls following a formal review.
I can live with an official getting a bang-bang judgment in real-time wrong, fine. I cannot live with blown rulings following a video review, and I don't think it's conspiratorial or far-out to be skeptical of NY's review room, given the fact they have full, complete, 100% autonomy in ruling on formal reviews (it's not a collaborative process with the on-field official; the NY review room can decide whatever they please, they have the final say). This is a huge violation of fairness/integrity and needs to be addressed (the process should be collaborative, with the on-field official ultimately having the final say in the event the NY review room and on-field official cannot agree).
NFL officiating as a whole - from the on-field calls and communication, game management, the review process, etc, needs to be revamped and overhauled next season. Get standardized, universalized cameras in all stadiums (including pylon cams), pay these guys full-time and give them extensive training. Take away full autonomy from the NY review room and make that process collaborative with on-field officials. For such a tremendous league, with tremendous history, prestige, and essentially unlimited financial resources, this is a f*cking disgrace.