Seriously though, what's up with these referees?

[chaccof]

8 hours ago, uticaclub said:

There’s games where a call here or there makes a difference, this was not one of those games

I have to agree - this one was not decided by the refs.  Maybe this will light a fire under the team and they'll come out of this fired up for the next big game which just happens to be in six days....It seems to me that even during the SB years, the team threw a stinker in there some time in the first half of the season.  Then it seemed to snap them back to the task at hand.  

[Never NEVER Give-up]

This was a stinker - no doubt. The key will be how they respond. However, two things to point out:
(1) The Butler Interception & long return - he was down by contact - his knee hit the ground. A simple rewind and slow-motion replay on my TV showed this. Why the booth officials missed it I do not know.
(2) The late Titan TD - Tannehill was clearly over the line of scrimmage. Prior to the snap, CBS' blue line of scrimmage showed the line precisely on the tip of the on-field arrow next to the "10" yard line or around the 7 3/4 yard line. Therefore, knowing this, when replays ran, you can clearly see he threw from between the 6 1/2 - 7 yard line. The late TD end-up being inconsequential - but I do not understand how they missed it on review - what if it allowed the Titans to pull ahead? The call was outrageous. It looks like the booth officials mailed it in when the Bills folded their tents.
The interception return however, had a huge impact on the game and seemed to take the life out of the Bills. The game was over after that moment.
I hate to say it but the Bills were over-confident for this one and got what they deserved in the end.

 

[dave mcbride]

8 hours ago, Freddie's Dead said:

 

See the LJ on the goal line?  He's supposed to stay at the LOS, but he abandoned his responsibility.  Bad technique.

I honestly think that if the play mattered, they would have overturned it. I think they just wanted to get out of there and the game, which was a total blowout by that point. That does happen. 

[OrtonHearsaWho]

26 minutes ago, Ralonzo said:

 

That was infuriating. Taiwan Jones was the gunner, it was in space, and the Titan damn near tore his jersey off after holding for 3-4 seconds. You can hardly be more obvious than that. If you're not seeing it as a ref it's because you don't want to see it.

 

What really kills me is that is called pretty much every time!  There probably is holding on every offensive play but that's tougher to call.  Special teams holds/blocks in the back are always out in the open...just like this was...and pretty much always called.  

 

Huge, huge play in that game in my opinion because it already puts the defense on its heels. 

[Never NEVER Give-up]

This one probably too close to overturn. . .

[Shaw66]

9 hours ago, Freddie's Dead said:

 

See the LJ on the goal line?  He's supposed to stay at the LOS, but he abandoned his responsibility.  Bad technique.

All the whining about the refs is misplaced.  

 

On the broadcast they explained that theLJ is supposed to leave the line of scrimmage on a passing play.  That's his job.  

 

On the replay they have to have CLEAR EVIDENCE that the call was wrong.  As much as it may have looked like he was over the line, it was impossible to tell exactly where the line was or whether some part of his body was on the line.  Just couldn't tell.  (Just like the phantom INT against the Rams.  Call on the field was INT, and there was no evidence that the ball wasn't intercepted.  It was pretty obvious what happened, but not evidence.)

 

Williams was just stupid and wrong on the procedure penalty.  I thought on o lineman moved when Epenesa jumped.   I too, have my doubts about the PI calls, but the point someone else made is the key point - officiating was not among the top ten reasons the Bills lost. 

[Keukasmallies]

2 hours ago, DabillsDaBillsDaBills said:

 

This is a good shot of why they let the play stand. The blue line was off by a good amount, the real line of scrimmage was the 7 yard line. Tannehill's back foot was close enough to the 7 when he released I can see why they let the play stand. 

 

Side note: the broadcast and announcers were both atrocious last night. How many times do we need to see a kick off from the kickers view? How many key plays didn't get a replay? How many times are the announcers going to say "The Titans are heroes for playing so well after two weeks of not practicing" Let's ignore the video proof that they broke NFL protocol to hold in person meetings/mini practices?

 

Care to share with us the difference between close enough and too far over

[Freddie's Dead]

11 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

On the broadcast they explained that theLJ is supposed to leave the line of scrimmage on a passing play.  That's his job.  

 

That doesn't make any sense.  He's the official responsible for calling whether the QB is past the LOS when throwing.

[Livinginthepast]

The call on the Tannehill play should have been an illegal forward pass. It looked illegal because it clearly was even on the field. The refs should have erred on the side of caution and flagged it. At that point it really didnt matter, Tenneseee was going to get a FG and least be up by 38-16. What I found most peculiar is they usually give that kind of generous iffy pity call to the team thats GETTING BLOWN OUT not the team thats up by 19!! 

 

None of this talk about refs matters anyway. They are always going to get worse. The quality of officiating has deteriorated since the league expanded in the 90s. And even with all the video evidence in HD,FFS! they still cannot see what is clearly in front of them.  The only solution that might help is giving the coaches one challenge per game on any bad call. That way something egregious can possibly be overturned. But judging from the phantom INT in the Rams game, a sober second look by those idiots in NYC doesnt change anything!

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

33 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

All the whining about the refs is misplaced.  

 

On the broadcast they explained that theLJ is supposed to leave the line of scrimmage on a passing play.  That's his job.  

 

On the replay they have to have CLEAR EVIDENCE that the call was wrong.  As much as it may have looked like he was over the line, it was impossible to tell exactly where the line was or whether some part of his body was on the line.  Just couldn't tell.  (Just like the phantom INT against the Rams.  Call on the field was INT, and there was no evidence that the ball wasn't intercepted.  It was pretty obvious what happened, but not evidence.)

 

Williams was just stupid and wrong on the procedure penalty.  I thought on o lineman moved when Epenesa jumped.   I too, have my doubts about the PI calls, but the point someone else made is the key point - officiating was not among the top ten reasons the Bills lost. 

 

The line is that guys legs - he's the line judge.  he was past the center point of that guy - so he should have been over the LOS.

My big issue was Lewan (if he's the left tackle).  It felt like he would sit back on every passing play right before the snap - his feet would set back a bit and his hips would rock a bit back.  Like every time.  

[without a drought]

I thought the Bills got away with a bunch of holding last night protecting Josh.

[nkreed]

3 hours ago, Jerome007 said:

The illegal shift one got me steaming. It cost a TD! Sure they got it back so it didn't affect the game, but...how can they call that? Diggs was still going sideways, he didn't have to reset.

It's because two players were moving, not a motion after being set. You're right if all players are set, but because the TE also moved, both players must reset before the snap.

2 hours ago, OrtonHearsaWho said:

One call...er, non call...that started things getting away from us was on the long punt return.  A blocker - right next to the returner - had a handful of jersey for a not insignificant amount of time

 

.

That was egregious. The Titans player did the same thing in the next punt but got called. That penalty alone gave them at least 30 yards. (BTW the Titans held for~15 yards on that play)

Edited October 14, 2020 by nkreed

[DabillsDaBillsDaBills]

1 hour ago, Keukasmallies said:

 

Care to share with us the difference between close enough and too far over

 

Maybe I'm not getting as worked up over this because the game was already out of reach, but I think letting the play stand was the correct decision. 

 

The NFL likes to say they need "clear evidence" to overturn the call on the field. 

 

Looking at the freeze frame it appears that his back foot is no more than a few inches beyond the LoS (note that since his foot is in the air we can't say definitively where his foot actually was at that time). 

 

He was probably over the line, but I can't be certain he was actually over the line, thus the play stands as called. 

 

I'm much angrier about the Rams INT and the non-TD for Brown not being overturned. 

[Mark Vader]

12 hours ago, uticaclub said:

There’s games where a call here or there makes a difference, this was not one of those games

Agreed.

 

That being said, there was no excuse for not calling that play an illegal forward pass.

1 hour ago, without a drought said:

I thought the Bills got away with a bunch of holding last night protecting Josh.

As did the Titans

[BFLO]

4 hours ago, OrtonHearsaWho said:

One call...er, non call...that started things getting away from us was on the long punt return.  A blocker - right next to the returner - had a handful of jersey for a not insignificant amount of time

 

.

I was yelling HOLDING at the TV for this. The Titan got his hand inside our gunners armpit and was yanking him away. I couldn't believe they didn't call it. 

 

Offensive holding on the O-Line is apparently no longer a penalty on either team. 

 

The refs were decidedly in Tennessee's favor, not that it mattered, The Bills shot themselves in the dick so many times there was basically no way they win this game. But at least it wouldn't have been a blow out if the reffing was better. 

[K-9]

12 hours ago, Freddie's Dead said:

 

See the LJ on the goal line?  He's supposed to stay at the LOS, but he abandoned his responsibility.  Bad technique.

That image is deceiving and the blue line is irrelevant. The down marker official must stand with the down marker at the forward point of the ball where it is placed by the head linesman after the previous play. 

5 hours ago, DrDawkinstein said:

Forward laterals are always legal in Tennessee. That's nothing new.

There’s no such thing as a forward lateral, only an illegal forward pass. 

[DrDawkinstein]

4 minutes ago, K-9 said:

 

There’s no such thing as a forward lateral

 

I see you ref in Tennessee as well.

[K-9]

3 minutes ago, DrDawkinstein said:

 

I see you ref in Tennessee as well.

Nah, I’m just a stickler for rules language. You will never hear a ref penalize a team for a forward lateral, but he will call an illegal forward pass. And when you think about it,  “forward lateral” is a contradiction in terms. 

Edited October 14, 2020 by K-9

[Dablitzkrieg]

It appears to me, that there is an effort to let offensive holding calls go this year.  That is my gripe w/ officiating.  I saw AJ Brown push off on a catch last night that was blatant and not called.  But, that doesn't excused 9 pre-snap penalties.

[Scott7975]

15 hours ago, Freddie's Dead said:

A number of years back, I took the time to go back and analyze the game to create the Zebra Report.  I called them as I seed them, with bad calls both ways, what we got away with, when we were screwed, and when we got a gift.  After a full season of Bills games, I came to the conclusion that the refereeing in the NFL was universally abysmal.  Bad calls, bad technique, never fixed.  I stopped doing it because ultimately, it was a waste of time.  If anything, the quality of the reffing has deteriorated even further.  They won't even overrule clear errors with replay. 

 

Tannehill was a least a yard past the LOS, but only one replay showed the blue line for the LOS.  Subsequent replays mysteriously erased the LOS highlighting, so it made it look way closer than it was.  We were not helped by the LJ abandoning his post and running to the EZ (bad technique).  We all saw the brutal calls on Josh's first "INT"*, and SmokeY's "non-touchdown"* and again, replay refused to overturn them.  Bottom line, NFL refs suck, and we can only hope to avoid them.

 

See... last year they gave the ability to challenge pass interference.  Everyone assumed they were testing it for the year to see if it would work, be better, whatever.  That wasn't the true test.  They overturned almost no pass interference penalties even when it was clear that they weren't pass interference.  The real test was to see how much fans would put up with replays not overturning clear evidence to the contrary so they could in the future just get rid of replay altogether... or at least see that people will put up with BS for a while.