Yesterday Was One Of The Worst Days of Officiating In NFL History

“They wanted them to win” Diontae Johnson told reporters in the locker room after PIttsburgh lost 20-10 against Jacksonville. “They was calling… everything was in their favor. Every little call. But it is what it is. I’m moving on from it.”

The NFL has a serious problem.

We joke around about how there "a script" the league was following the last couple of seasons, and the league even addressed it head-on this past offseason in tongue-in-cheek advertisements to hype up this coming season.

Listen Roger, I was born at night. But not last night. 

Make light of this shit all that you want. Just use some of the fucking BILLIONS you and your ownership cronies divide up amongst yourselves and hire competant fucking referees, whose only job and responsibility is doing a respectable job once a week for 20 weeks a year. Pay them handsomly so you can actually attract talent, and so that they don't have to work a real full-time job selling insurance like 80% of these guys do. 

You greedy fucks.

We're fucking dying here watching this shit.

Mike Tomlin agrees.

Today Mike? You mean "this whole fucking year"?

It's been fucking atrocious officiating across the board in the NFL for years now, this year especially. So to say that today has been the utter fucking worst is really saying something.

And Mike Tomlin isn't the only one. 

Bastion of level-headedness and composure Jim Irsay lost his shit this past week.

Tuesday, Irsay shared an update on X for Colts fans. The first part of the post was about rookie quarterback Anthony Richardson’s surgery, which apparently went well. The second part of the post was about the calls, which the owner says the league has since admitted were wrong.

(source) “The NFL admits and understands that they did not make the correct calls at end of Sunday’s Colts/Browns Game,” wrote Irsay. “I believe we need to institute Instant Replay for all calls, including Penalties, in the last two minutes of All Games.”

Nerd/Narc Tom Pelissaro of course carried the league's water and diverted attention from what Irsay tattled on

The only person in the media I saw even mention this this entire week was that guy who used to work here who has a worse spray tan than Portnoy or Trump.

Then there were these two massive call and no-calls in the Philly and Washington game today.

And yes, this guy is right, this ultimately was Rivera's fault for not having a challenge for this play, but it doesn't negate the main point here about the refs being fucking awful, nor the call earlier.

Then there was the Miami and New England game.

This was all capped off with the 49ers and Bengals game this afternoon where there were so many plays miscalled that I had to run to twitter to try and find videos from regular fans because the pro's weren't able to keep up posting online.

I seriously thought I missed something here, or was seeing things.

San Fran was stuffed on 4th down, we all literally saw it with our own eyes. And then the chain gang began moving into place for another 49er first-down and the offense stayed on the field, quickly setup, and snapped the ball.

Zac Taylor was apoplectic on the sidelines and rightfully so. The other female ref basically told him to get fucked and the game progressed. 

No big deal.

It continued throughout the remainder of the game.

That wasn't even the only big controversial ball spot today. There was also this one from the Arizona Baltimore game. Figure this one out.

And not to be discreet about it, they made sure to show off some real fuckery on the very first play from scrimmage in the nationally televised Chargers - Bears game tonight with this phantom whistle that prevented a probably touchdown.

It's so fucking bad now that I don't think we have any choice but to ask if there aren't league mandates that the officials are attempting to carry out, than is money is influencing the situation?

When Dave bought the company back, I was able to finally get a blog off (shout out Nate) that was never able to see the light of day when we were owned by a gambling company…

I'll write here what I wrote there-

----Dante's Unpublished Blog From December 20, 2022----

Mike Florio Floated The Possibility of The NFL Having A Tim Donaghy Type Scandal On Its Hands After The Inexcusable Officiating This Weekend. And He's Dead On.

So the hashtag #NFLRigged was flying around everywhere on twitter on Sunday. And for good reason. 

Nate was all over this from the jump on Sunday Night, and again on Monday morning as the rest of the country's pitchforks came out. And rightfully so.

That flag was fucking outrageous. Especially given the circumstances. And incredibly shady. And I'm not even pissed off because I had Washington +4 and was banking on them tying it up and winning in OT. I mean I was but when you see a call like that, with a flag that late come in, and followed by the cout de gras on the Commanders final play of the game, 

Your cares for your five team parlay you had nailed the first four legs on go completely out the window. (Just kidding. It's fucking bullshit).

But back to Florio and the tremendous points he made - 

“Obligation” or not, the closest official typically assists with the process. And for good reason. The players want to be properly lined up. And the officials don’t want to bog the game down with hypertechnical fouls regarding the pre-snap positioning of players on the fringes of the play.Also, beyond the question of whether the pattern and practice has created a de facto obligation to help is the question of whether officials should ever affirmatively mislead receivers, by acting as if everything is fine when the player isn’t properly aligned.

If you watch the video, seriously, go ahead and watch it again- 

and observe the linesman and McLaurin, you'll see McLaurin seems to seek a thumbs up that he's lined up correctly - something anybody who's ever played a down of pop warner, flag, or higher level football will tell you happens on every single down, of every single game- he gets the approval and then the official seems to place his hand on the flag, waiting to decide whether to throw it or not based on the outcome of the play!

This flag took the game-tying TD off the board. This wasn't a false start at the 45 with 10 minutes to go in the 3rd we're talking about. 

Whatever the explanation, it’s a bad look for the NFL, because it demonstrates that, yes, Virginia (and Maryland and D.C.), there is a pathway for serious officiating shenanigans.I continue to believe the NFL isn’t rigged, in the sense that the NFL doesn’t ever “want” specific teams to win or lose. I worry that a given official could, given the prevalence and ease of legalized gambling, get sufficiently swept up in it to corrupt objectivity and fairness.And, frankly, it’s exhausting to be on the front line of trying to tell fans who think that, for example, the league office doesn’t want Daniel Snyder’s team in the playoffs.

Florio didn't harp on the egregious no-call PI on the final play, but I will. 

It only exacerbates the belief that there was no way Washington was winning this game.

And this shit happens EVERY. SINGLE. WEEK.

Ask any Bears fan and they'll tell you, yes the Green Bay Packers are an elite team compared to theirs, no they don't need the ref's help in beating them on an annual basis, twice. But do they get some serious ridiculous calls? Absolutely. And it's not just against them. It's week in and week out. 

What’s seriously insane, is the collective of people who believed David Stern’s (rip) narrative that Tim Donaghy was a lone wolf, rogue entity. That it started and stopped with him.

Lo-fucking-l.

Probably the same people who believe Oswald acted alone.

For anybody who watched NBA games religiously back at that time, and who’s caught it happen here and there since, basketball games are much easier to affect without most people noticing through small, subtle, calls, usually early in the game.

There’s obviously the greater propensity for whistles in basketball vs every other sport. But when you’d see a star player get a quick 3 fouls in the first quarter, forcing him to the bench, you knew that team was fucked that night. Having them off the floor dramatically influenced the game. Racking up a 4th and 5th, spaced out, foul later in the game didn’t seem so extreme. Considering most of the focus is only on the final 2 minutes, altering the game in the prior 46 is and was a piece of cake. 

To think this was an isolated incident is banana land.

To think that humans can be totally objective, and operate without any subjectivity whatsoever - towards certain players, teams, cities, etc- while officiating an NFL game is clown talk. 

I’m not necessarily saying that refs or the NFL fixes games, but I’m not saying they don’t. 

And what's crazy is if they really want to, and actually do "fix" games, they're totally within their means to. No joke.

Media Post - Just so we’re clear: In 2007, the New England Patriots were caught cheating, videotaping opponents’ formations and coaching signals — even with evidence destroyed by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. Turned out they’d been doing it for 10 years. A Jets fan and season-ticket holder, Carl Mayer, sued the Patriots, asking for reimbursement to all Jets fans who went to those games. He lost.

But why did he lose?

If you read the brief one-paragraph explanation that ran in The New York Times on May 19, 2010, you’d only learn that “Mayer failed to prove any legal right to damages.”

OK, but why not? Google and Bing your way around the internet and you’ll find explanations hard to come by from any sports, business or legal reporter. But at least the court decision is online, and you can read it for yourself.

Since you probably won’t, here’s the tl;dr: The NFL argued, and the court agreed, that people who buy tickets to an NFL game have the contractual right to a seat to watch two teams play each other, and nothing else. The court even quoted Mayer’s ticket stub, which reads: “This ticket only grants entry into the stadium and a spectator seat for the specified NFL game.” (emphasis added)

If the Patriots cheated to win that game, well, tough. Legally extrapolate that and it means: If any NFL outcome is fixed, well, tough.

Also in 2010, in a separate court case against the NFL over branded items like hats and shirts, the league presented itself not as 32 separate teams, but as one singular business “unit in the entertainment marketplace.”

Throughout that case, the NFL repeatedly positioned itself legally as a “sports entertainment” business, not a genuinely contested “sport.” College football, for example, is legally classified as a “collegiate sport.” The only other “sports entertainment” businesses are professional wrestling and roller derby.

I think the part that makes most fans, (definitely myself), so dubious, and think the leagues are shady as fuck, is the complete lack of accountability that officials and referees have.

A player could have the worst performance of their life, after losing a loved one, finding out they've been traded and have to pack up their family and move across the country, and they're still required to face the media. To stand in front of a microphone and have their performance dissected by little nerds with tape recorders trying to push their buttons to set them off and get a sound byte.

But referees? 

They can totally botch a call, an entire game, changing the course of a team's season, a player's or coach's career, and nada. 

They run into the tunnel and hide behind the shield. Or the crest. Or the commissioner. 

If a player or coach calls them out on it they're fined tens of thousands of dollars.

And on top of it you have clowns like Dean Blandino who the league and the networks trot out and throw on telecasts to offer insight, or comment on things after the fact on Monday's where they usually defend the calls in question like they're explaining something to a mentally challenged child. Occasionally they will offer a half-ass apology. 

Either way, it's fucking lunacy.

Call Mike Florio and myself crazy all you want, but keep in mind you’re also calling Earl Campbell nuts too.

"And we all know, now that we’re grown men, that wrestling’s fake. Well, football is not played like it was when I played." -- retired Houston Oilers RB and Hall of Famer Earl Campbell"We're talking about a different NFL now … before it was more about the game. Now it's such an entertainment business. It's turning into the WWE really. It's like the Vince McMahon stuff. Basically, [Roger] Goodell is like Vince McMahon." -- Cleveland Browns tackle Joe Thomas"[The NFL is] like a spectacle of violence, for entertainment, and you're the actors in it. You're complicit in that: You put on the uniform. And it's a trivial thing at its core. It's make-believe, really. That's the truth about it."-- former 49ers linebacker Chris Borland

This feels like one of those things where it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Like something run by the government where we're just forced to swallow it and deal with it. The NFL insults our intelligence every week like we're fucking morons, telling us they just lets the guys go out and play every week, and let the chips fall as they may. We're not buying it. They could have put a fucking microchip in the footballs ten years ago to tell if the ball has crossed the goalline or not and they haven't. Tennis is judged entirely by computers that can see to the fraction of an inch where a ball going 140 mph lands in or out of bounds. The league could employ the same technology for its sidelines and they could have done it years ago. 

Instead we have buffoons like Ron Torbert out there every Sunday making "judgement calls" and taking 20 minutes under the hood killing any and all momentum and crowd interest, but providing plenty of commercial time, to tell if a guys toes dragged in bounds or not. There's a reason we have part-time refs, full-time insurance salesmen doing this shit and not robots or guys whose sole and only job in life is officiating football games. Not like its a billion-dollar industry or anything.