good artilce on the bad officiating this week-end

The Pats led 3-0 when Jake Plummer threw deep from the New England 40 for Ashley Lelie. Asante Samuel, who had already picked off Plummer, was running stride for stride with Lelie. He turned his head back as he ran and maintained perfect position. As the ball came down, Lelie put his right hand on Samuel's shoulder pad and tugged, pulling the smaller defender into him. Still, Samuel kept his feet as the ball landed harmlessly in the end zone seven yards beyond the players. The official right on top of the play correctly called nothing.

A thousand one.

A thousand two.

A thousand three.

Asante Samuel was on the wrong end of one of the worst calls in playoff history. (Doug Pensinger / Getty Images)

And then from out of nowhere a flag flies into the frame. The officials confer and one seems to be trying to talk the other out of making a terrible mistake. But, alas, he can't. The yellow has been thrown — obviously in error — and instead of rectifying the mistake, the officials basically award the Broncos the game's first touchdown by giving them first-and-goal at the one.

From where the flag came from, I assumed it was thrown by the back judge, a suspicion confirmed by CBS analyst Phil Simms. So I would like to ask Greg Sneed what he saw or thought he saw that would make him so confident in his call that he would be willing to give a team seven points in a 3-0 game. Why, Greg Sneed, why?

And if you were so confident in your call, Greg Sneed, what took you so long to throw the flag?

Now Greg Sneed was allowed to wriggle off the hook by the unprecedented implosion of Patriot ol' reliables Kevin Faulk, Troy Brown, Adam Vinatieri and, yes, Tom Brady. But Greg Sneed still has some explaining to do. (If for some reason, it was not back judge Greg Sneed who made that awful call, please e-mail me so I can vilify the proper incompetent official.)

Greg Sneed, referee Jeff Triplette — the man who nearly blinded Orlando Brown — and all five members of their crew then missed a false start by George Foster on Jason Elam's 50-yard field goal that barely cleared the crossbar. So, yes, the Broncos' first 10 points all game gift-wrapped by a dreadful officiating crew. Later, Champ Bailey would be popped by Benjamin Watson on an interception return and fumble inside the one-yard line. The officials — no doubt winded by the length of the field sprint — ruled that Bailey's fumble had gone straight sideways and awarded the Broncos the ball at the spot of the fumble. But that's not what happened. The ball appeared to go forward, ending up out of bounds several yards beyond the goal line. Up in the booth, Simms had it right. Triplette, Simms said, needed to trace a line from where the ball landed out of bounds back to where the ball had left Bailey's hands. Had he done this, he would have discovered that it simply had to cross the goal-line either inside the pylon or directly over the pylon. Both would have resulted in a touchback and New England's ball at the 20. But I guess Triplette had his own magic bullet theory where the ball followed an L-shaped path — around the outside of the pylon — before landing. The non-reversal made it 17 points wrongly awarded to the Broncos by poor officiating.

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scott99 said:

Let's face it. Nothing went right this weekend, The Patriots made major mistakes, the Refs made major mistakes, but this is football. Stuff is going to happen, and there is nothing we can do about it, charts, graphs, magic bullet pictures and videos. All it's going to do is frustrate us even more. Pats fans like myself were devestated by the awful roughing the passer call in 1976 when we lost to the Raiders, Raiders fans were devastated by the "tuck" call, sometimes the calls don't go your way. We aren't going to SB 40, and all the b*tching and moaning in the world can't change that.

Did some major bad calls go against us ? Yes. But did we have 5 turnovers in the game ? Yes, and 99.9% of teams that have 5 turnovers ALWAYS lose the game. We were not the better team, because the better team doesn't commit 5 turnovers, period. Congrats to the Broncos, and good luck in the future. Hopefully we crush them next regular season, and hopefully, in the playoffs too.

Do I think the refs had an awful weekend ? H*ll yeah, That Polamalu call may have been the worst I've ever seen, especially since the replay CLEARLY showed it was a good INT. The PI call was pitiful, and it was definately a touchback on Bailey's INT, but even with replay, and ref discussions, we came out on the wrong end. It's time to accept it, file it away with the 1976 call, and move forward. We can't do anything about it, just like the one in 1976.

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scott99 said:

Let's face it. Nothing went right this weekend, The Patriots made major mistakes, the Refs made major mistakes, but this is football. Stuff is going to happen, and there is nothing we can do about it, charts, graphs, magic bullet pictures and videos. All it's going to do is frustrate us even more. Pats fans like myself were devestated by the awful roughing the passer call in 1976 when we lost to the Raiders, Raiders fans were devastated by the "tuck" call, sometimes the calls don't go your way. We aren't going to SB 40, and all the b*tching and moaning in the world can't change that.

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MoLewisrocks said:

You need to stop confusing discussion of embarrassing officiating with discussion of what led to it. And I actually do think some things are going to change as a result of what happened this weekend and all the disgusted discussion that has ensued in it's wake. Believe me, the NFL has noticed and noted not only the frustration of the fans whose teams were on the receiving end of this BS (which is par for the course) but the widespread anger and condemnation being heaped on them by the national football media. For once they are serving a constructive purpose.

This isn't sour grapes about calls not going our way. This is about officiating effecting the broadbased integrity of the game. Not on one play or in one game but on multiple plays in 3 out of 4 playoff games where the victor moves on to the division championship.

Hench's closing point is what the discussion is really about:

"And thus concluded one of the more embarrassing chapters in NFL history. As television replay technology has improved, it has exposed the sad truth that the game just moves too fast for those seven overmatched officials on the field.

It has me thinking, is this the year the Super Bowl is decided on a bad call? You know, one of those calls — like pass interference — that can't be reviewed. One of these years, it's bound to happen."

And because of the gambling tie in that drives footballs fortunes, the NFL lives in fear of that moment particularly if there were any appearance that there might have been more to it than officials simply being overmatched.

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broncoted said:

Serious, some of ya need to stop being crybabies....Bad calls happen all the time...I'll only give you the PI, but thats it. And for all this talk about the Bailey fumble being "definately" out of the endzone, its funny no one can give definitive proof. Not even Pats1, who even tried to give the Patriots a good spot on his line chart.

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broncoted said:

Serious, some of ya need to stop being crybabies....Bad calls happen all the time...I'll only give you the PI, but thats it. And for all this talk about the Bailey fumble being "definately" out of the endzone, its funny no one can give definitive proof. Not even Pats1, who even tried to give the Patriots a good spot on his line chart.

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CheerforTom said:

The thing about you, broncoted, is that you seem to think that when we comment on the calls we're thinking "if we complain enough it'll justify losing!". Some (a minority) of people on this board might be thinking that, but the fact is that isn't true. Every New England player interviewed has said that when you turn the ball over like they did, you lose, and they're right.

However, I've never heard you own up to the other side of this statement, either. There were a great deal of very bad calls made against New England, and frankly we have a right to be pissed about them. We can't claim they gave you the game, but we can grump about them all we want, and we can CERTAINLY comment on them. The only one you've acknowledged was a bad call was the PI, and that says something about you.

So what I'm saying (not that you'll listen, odds are) is that before you continue telling us "crybabies" what to do, maybe you should consider the reality that it was a very badly called game. I know you think your Broncos flattened us, but even if they did, the game was still a circus of penalties. We'll own up if you do.

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MoLewisrocks said:

....
This isn't sour grapes about calls not going our way. This is about officiating effecting the broadbased integrity of the game. Not on one play or in one game but on multiple plays in 3 out of 4 playoff games where the victor moves on to the division championship.

Hench's closing point is what the discussion is really about:

"And thus concluded one of the more embarrassing chapters in NFL history. As television replay technology has improved, it has exposed the sad truth that the game just moves too fast for those seven overmatched officials on the field.

....
And because of the gambling tie in that drives footballs fortunes, the NFL lives in fear of that moment particularly if there were any appearance that there might have been more to it than officials simply being overmatched.

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shatch62 said:

http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/5251620

Every game the refs seemed to be wrong.

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