How on Earth was this not a flag?

[Marko]

Was that the play the Pats had to waste a timeout? How the eff were they supposed to line up ?

No, that was later, and was absolutely ridiculous.

 

[pats99]

Traditionally, if you miss the whistle too bad, and there was a million whistles. Wasn’t a super hard hit but c’mon this was absolutely absurd

This one was a wierd no call for sure. So if you late hit a quarterback after he releases the ball during the play you get flagged for it. But if it happens after the play is finished (whistle has blown) and the qb is all relaxed and vulnerable it isn't. Huh ?

 

[Marko]

The laughable thing is that they called holding on some unbelievably soft plays, after that

 

[pats99]

Has anyone heard from the referees what the official explanation was for the no call ?

 

[Bill Lee]

It would have been a flag if it was a hit on Tom.

Or Aaron. Heck, he might refuse to play after that kind of hit.

 

[Bill Lee]

yesterday was just about "anything goes" with respect to WR/DB hand fighting, pushing, bumping, etc. Just don't give a full arm extension push off, and do not grab a jersey, and you're good. Which mostly helps NE, to be honest. Our guys get pretty handsy and more effective when all non-blatant contact is allowed. More like "playoff reffing".

But to allow shots after the whistle, like the one on Mac, is just flat-out wrong.

Agree 100%.

I've watched a lot of games in the last two days (DVR was full of them) and DBs are getting away with all kind of stuff they used to not get away with.

The path to hell is the rule where the DB is allowed to use his arm to figure out where the WR is and maintain relative position to him.

Well, if you can do that, how much more is it to get in the occasional tug of the jersey or push off, just enough to disrupt the play?

How hard is it to "accidentally" entrap the WR's arm to slow him down?

Then you put the refs in a position where they get accused of "ticky-tack" calls when they do decide there's plain-old hand checking going on.

Saw lots of this across a good half dozen or so games I watched.

I thought this is supposed to be a league that favors the offense, but it seems to me the balance is swinging to the DBs.

As you say this kind of does favor us since we have good coaching, but IMO it makes the game less enjoyable to watch.

It becomes a game of seeing how much you can get away with, and puts too much of the game into the ref's hands.

 

[archstanton543]

I usually like Michael Hurley but he's poo-pooing the Mac late hit saying it wasn't a big deal. It is a big deal if you care about the rules and player safety. It was one of the most blatant unnecessary roughness calls I've ever seen in my 30+ years of watching football. It's good that Mac didn't get hurt on the play but that doesn't make it less egregious.

 

[XLIX]

Quite honestly, I thought they were going to throw a taunting flag with his "bring it on" gesture.

But I f'ing love seeing 5 offensive lineman - plus a TE - coming to their QB's defense right away. That action speaks volumes.

 

[Triumph]

There was an Pats offensive holding call on the left side of the line that was a joke.

Judon was getting mauled out there with no call, but thats every game so its the new normal.

 

[EddardSnow67]

Tillery had some issues with random dirty plays at ND as well.

 

[reflexblue]

Refs took the day off yesterday. Mind blowing how bad it was across the league.

Goodell should be proud.

IMHO the referring has been terrible ever since the the year the replacement reffs showed up. Those guys were horrible, and they're incompetence rubbed off on the regular reffs when they came back

 

[DaBruinz]

Judon was "finishing the play" too on that punt... and out comes the flag. Weird. He was also held all game and no call.

Always great to beat the other team and their refs.

Yeah.. the Punter initiated contact with Judon by coming down on Judon's back. Judon never touched the plant leg that I saw.

 

[DaBruinz]

Tillery shoulda been tossed from the game because it was BLATANT intent to injure Jones.. That's how late after the WHISTLES it was.

 

[DaBruinz]

IMHO the referring has been terrible ever since the the year the replacement reffs showed up. Those guys were horrible, and they're incompetence rubbed off on the regular reffs when they came back

It's been horrible since before that. Yet the league keeps making excuses.

 

[Jim Beankie]

It becomes a game of seeing how much you can get away with, and puts too much of the game into the ref's hands.

This is the history of sports... and frankly pretty much everything else.