This is going to destroy the league! The NFL needs to step in and really hold these refs accountable as they have now made the biggest mistake of the season (and perhaps the last 10 years) with the result of the Lions vs. Cowboys game!
The NFL fanbases, players, and franchises will revolt if the NFL doesn’t get a hand on these buffoons!
The NFL has a problem almost as big as the CTE and concussion outcries from a decade ago as the blatant incompetence of their referees is now being questioned by fans, players, coaches, and the franchises if such incompetence is really corruption with the Lions vs. Cowboys ending. And, to be honest, I’m even now starting to think the NFL is even more scripted than the WWE with the refs they hire.
Where does the NFL get these total braindead refs? Where?!?!
Okay, I don’t want to call ALL the refs braindead fools as that’s not fair for each ref is a part of a refereeing team and there are very good teams in the NFL today (hell, those are the ones that usually get the Super Bowl and championship game nods). But for every good ref team, there must be AT LEAST six in the league today that are jammed pack with the dumbest, spinless cowards who may or may not be corrupt given how awful their non calls and ESPECIALLY calls have been this season.
And one such team is the one that referee Brian Allen lead last night in the Dallas Cowboys vs. Detroit Lions game.
For those who didn’t watch the Cowboys vs. Lions, it really was a great game between two of the best teams in the NFC with the Lions and Cowboys going back and forth all night long and needing the final drive of the game to decide the matchup. And this is where we saw perhaps the worst penalty call in NFL history.
With under 2 minutes on the clock and the Lions down 20-13, Detroit cut through a defense that had stopped them all night long and drove the ball 70+ yards to score a TD through Jared Goff making a great throw to Amon-Ra St.-Brown…who made an even better effort to dive into the endzone. It really was a great drive that brought the Lions to within a PAT make to tie the game and send it to overtime and keep their #1 NFC seed hopes alive.
Well, not really as Lions HC Dan Campbell has never been one to take the safe route and decided to go for the 2-point conversion and what would have been the winning 22-21 score as there was less than 25 seconds on the clock for the Cowboys to work with. And the 2-point conversion actually WORKED as Jared Goff faked out the Cowboys defense and threw to a wide-open Taylor Decker…one of the Lions offensive linemen who checked in as a valid receiver to the shock of the Cowboys defense.
Thus, the Lions players went crazy after the conversion, the bench was rejoicing at the fact they now had a serious shot of being the #1 seed in the entire NFC and having a bye-week straight into the Divisional Round of the playoffs two weeks from now. Meanwhile every single Cowboys fan had brought out their pitchforks and were right about to string up Mike McCarthy when…a late flag was thrown on the field.
Despite every player and coach on the Lions field and bench protesting to their last breath, it turned out Taylor Decker, who NEEDED to check in with the ref to tell him he’s an eligible receiver, did not check in and was subsequently called for illegal touching of the football.
And after two more crazy 2-point attempts that saw the Lions get picked off on one (but it was called back for an offsides call on the Dallas defense) and then failed to convert on the third from Jared Goff missing his throw, the Lions failed to score, lost the game 20-19, and lost the chance to earn a much-deserved and needed bye as the #1 seed in the NFC. Reversely, Mike McCarthy and this Dallas team most likely saved themselves from being shoved in stockades and had tomatoes thrown at them by the Dallas faithful with this lucky win to go 11-6 and be the team with the chance of earning the #1 seed.
Everything checks out here. Why am I among millions of people complaining about the refs for a perfectly valid penalty?
Well, it turns out that ESPN had caught an angle of the pre-play motions for that first 2-point conversion that showed not only did Taylor Decker check in with referee Brian Allen prior to the play, but also Allen ASSUMED it was Lions OC Dan Skipper (who had been checking in all game long, but did not on that play to set up the trick) who checked in as the eligible receiver and announced as much during the penalty call and the closed-door ref interview after the game.
How horrific is that?!?!
The ref didn’t just make a bad holding or PI call, but blatantly refused to do his job’s due-diligence and assumed it was Skipper and not Decker who checked in as the eligible receiver. You just can’t do that as a ref! Yes, you can make mistakes and bad calls in the heat of the moment, but this was before the play had even started on a dead clock. There was no reason for his gross negligence and incompetence to not wait 2 more seconds to make sure it was Decker who checked in with him.
And if you think I’m being overly harsh on this dumbass, then let me remind you that it was him and his team who made that AWFUL unnecessary roughness call on the legal hit on Patrick Mahomes and missed the BLATANT PI call on Marquez Valdes-Scantling in the Packers vs. Chiefs game a few weeks ago. If the refs were held a little more accountable (such as losing assignments, face media scrutiny, or docked pay on failing to do their due diligence on calls like this one), then I wouldn’t be nearly as upset.
But they don’t! They get off scot-free EVERY SINGLE TIME they make these crap decisions!
And that needs to change or else the NFL is really going to have a revolt on their hands against the league office and the refs by the players, coaches, fans, and franchises if they continue to get blatantly screwed over as the Lions were last night.
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