Yes, the refs suck. No, they are not angling for the Bills to lose.

[AuntieEm]

7 hours ago, FireChans said:

They have also put Josh in that category, based on that breathing on the passer call.

 

Refs protect the big time QBs because the NFL wants them to.

 

     Also there some talk that can get heated in the midst of a close physical game.  Then there's times when heated words exchanged when players feel a penalty is ignored. The ref criticism that Baker Mayfield brought up in post game  will incur the fine he acknowledged. Don't know how much the criticism is gonna impact how calls go for and against him in future from his public complaint. I guess it depends how much clout his commercial sponsors have with the league.  Its usually not a good idea to criticize referees as they have a lot they have to watch for and the game is so fast at times hard to always catch all the borderline and sometime blatant fouls.

 

 

[cage]

I don't think games are fixed or that refs "favor a given team.  But, I would like to see some stats on officiating crews in primetime (TNF, SNF, MNF, Thanksgiving games...).  I want to put to bed in my own head that there's not a tendancy to over-officiate for the cameras.  

 

Also, I think there are definitely make-up calls.  The Clark roughing is a good example of one that might not have been called if they didn't screw up the Morse holding on the play before.  The Morse penalty was an enormous mistake.  Allen had run for the first down and they set us back to 3rd and 17 way back in our zone.  

Edited October 12, 2021 by cage

[Billy Claude]

I can believe that there can be a subconscious bias toward star players - "DeAndre Hopkins couldn't have dropped that -- the CB must have gotten there early", home teams, and even perhaps teams that are regarded as well coached.  I might even believe that particular referees may even have personal biases against particular players.

 

However, to believe that the NFL tells officials to favor one team vs. another is to believe that either Goodell can keep this secret from 31 mostly billionaire owners or that these hyper-competitive owners get together and decide who is going to get the calls and who isn't.  To me this is just completely lubricous.  It is a sad statement on the critical thinking of society as a whole if many fans believe this.

[SoMAn]

10 hours ago, Buffalo619 said:

Isn’t this common knowledge by now:

 

https://www.distractify.com/p/nfl-scripted

This is ridiculous. Sporting events are exceptionally entertaining, largely because of the unpredictability.

If you stumbled onto any Hallmark movie while channel surfing, you'd instantly know how it will progress and end (so I've heard) before you switch over to the NFL Network channel.

Football, possibly more than any other professional sport, has a high level of uncertainty throughout the 60 minutes. Numerous variables. A multitude of things that can happen.

The big problem with officiating is the inconsistency in how different crews call penalties. Some are flag-happy. Others let minor infractions go if they determine it didn't effect the outcome of the play. Maybe the best officials who see everything are the ones we see as the worst.

 

It's highly unlikely anything is 'fixed'.  If it were, we'd have known long before some publicity-seeking journeyman RB made it a headline.

[Matt_In_NH]

Fans are way more biased than any officials.

 

Holding (Defensive and Offensive), Pass Interference (Defensive and Offensive), illegal contact, late hits are all subjective to some degree so you get different humans with different interpretations in situations they are trying to see a lot in real time.  They are not incompetent, they are doing a job that is really difficult.  Are they are human and have unintentional biases sometimes when it comes to marque players/coaches?  Yes probably at times that happens.  There is no agenda to make the Chiefs win because they are 2-2, that is ludicrous and it would come out at some point...just like Grudens emails came out.   

 

Go back and watch games pre instant replay when it was commonplace to have a clear turnover called down by contact or a clear dropped INT called a turnover that absolutely changed the game.  No one complains much about what is ruled a catch/not a catch like a few years back, they cleaned it up in the rule book with common sense.   Officiating has gotten better over the years, not worse and its not close.  What has also changed is expectations of fans, slow mo instant replay in high def, instant tweats and memes.  Subjective penalties are a left over human element that are not easily solved with replay or new rule language, its part of the game.  

 

I agree with the OP, the gameday thread was hard to look at because of the volume of complaining about the refs.  There were bad calls in the game, I agree.  From reading the gameday thread there were dozens and dozens, probably hundreds of non calls against the Chiefs....on the flip side there were 0 non calls against the Bills.  

 

[fasteddie]

8 hours ago, goldenboy81 said:

If somebody would be kind to explain the offensive holding on the chiefs that resulted in a 1st and 5 for them.

I've never recall seeing that before usually it would be 1st and 20. Ty

I don't remember the exact down, but how this can happen is the play occurs on first down. The ball carrier/ receiver passes the yard to gain and a foul for holding occurs five yards past the yard to gain. 

The penalty is ten yards and repeat the previous down. Since the penalty happened past the yard to gain for a first down, they move the ball back 10 yards and replay first down. Thus, first and 5.

I hope this scenario helps.

[Not at the table Karlos]

NFL wants games to go down to the wire. Goodell said something about it around 2018 and since then there's been a lot of questionable calls that kept teams in games. There was something like 70% of games that came down to the last couple mins after he said this. I'll try to find an article. 

9 hours ago, Warcodered said:

If they are biased it's toward keeping the game interesting which still sucks.

This is exactly it. 

[SageAgainstTheMachine]

1 hour ago, Billy Claude said:

I can believe that there can be a subconscious bias toward star players - "DeAndre Hopkins couldn't have dropped that -- the CB must have gotten there early", home teams, and even perhaps teams that are regarded as well coached.  I might even believe that particular referees may even have personal biases against particular players.

 

However, to believe that the NFL tells officials to favor one team vs. another is to believe that either Goodell can keep this secret from 31 mostly billionaire owners or that these hyper-competitive owners get together and decide who is going to get the calls and who isn't.  To me this is just completely lubricous.  It is a sad statement on the critical thinking of society as a whole if many fans believe this.

 

Pretty much this.  Humans are notoriously bad secret-keepers so whenever there's talk of something conspiratorial the first question I ask myself is "For this to be true, how many people would need to be keeping this secret?".  If the answer is any more than a few I consider it a very low percentage chance of being true.

[SirAndrew]

10 hours ago, fridge said:

There is likely a bias towards the greats, and referees have placed Mahomes in that category.

 

The only thing that bothers me is when drives stall and are extended by weak calls, and that goes both ways.

Yeah, NFL officials are really bad, but that bias has always existed. I remember when you couldn’t throw a strike to Jeter during the Yankees championship runs. 

[Call_Of_Ktulu]

If Ed Olivers RTP was a flag then the one with the KC defender definitely was. The refs have been doing this for years, they always seem to flag us with ticky tac calls when we have a big play like a 3rd down conversion or a TD. I had to really contain myself on the holding call on Morse, I almost flew threw the drywall again. 

[Mr. WEO]

12 hours ago, Buffalo619 said:

Isn’t this common knowledge by now:

 

https://www.distractify.com/p/nfl-scripted

 

The character of "Benny Cunningham" keeps getting killed off...

[Matt_In_NH]

10 minutes ago, Call_Of_Ktulu said:

If Ed Olivers RTP was a flag then the one with the KC defender definitely was. The refs have been doing this for years, they always seem to flag us with ticky tac calls when we have a big play like a 3rd down conversion or a TD. I had to really contain myself on the holding call on Morse, I almost flew threw the drywall again. 

 

Do you think the call on KC was also "ticky tac"?  Both calls, Oliver and the one on KC converted drivers that eventually led to TD's.  KC had an INT wiped off the board.  Or do you see the KC as obvious and egregious but the call on Oliver was ticky tac?   

[corta765]

Thank you for this. I read the Chiefs forum and they think Buffalo was gifted the game by the refs if your talking about who got more favorable calls. In general every fanbase thinks the refs are out for them.

 

The biggest thing for me is how sensitive Bills fans are. I believe we were named the most sensitive fanbase in the NFL and like you said there is a heavy small market insecurity/us the against the world mindset our fans get regularly. Now that the team is winning I think that chip is much larger.

[LeviF]

1 hour ago, SageAgainstTheMachine said:

 

Pretty much this.  Humans are notoriously bad secret-keepers so whenever there's talk of something conspiratorial the first question I ask myself is "For this to be true, how many people would need to be keeping this secret?".  If the answer is any more than a few I consider it a very low percentage chance of being true.

 

While not really related to the topic at hand the secret doesn't need to be kept indefinitely. The assumption that it does is a major flaw in this view on conspiracy.

[Orlando Buffalo]

I think we often when pissed will say it is intentional when we know it is incompetence, I know I say it Sunday but by Monday know they just suck. The issue is simply that inconsistency is going to favor one team or the other based on things that are not rule based. For example in the Pitt game one of the hold calls came because the Dlinemen threw his hands up, even though he was not held. The ability to manipulate officials that way should not happen. Also most officials are 60+ years old and can not get into position to make proper calls therefore rely on other indicators of fouls. NFL can fix it but choose not to.

 

[BFLO]

 

Tired of this narrative that both RTP's were bad calls and that the refs equally sucked for both teams. 

 

https://operations.nfl.com/the-rules/nfl-video-rulebook/roughing-the-passer/

https://twitter.com/MarkEnnis/status/1447408923615576068?s=20

Roughing the Mahomes was called on #91 Ed Oliver. Despite the words coming out of Collinsworth's useless mouth the hit was neither late or illegal for "below or at the knees" 

1. The hit was not late as defined by the rule. Oliver had launched himself while Mahomes still had the ball and makes contact without taking any steps after the ball was released. "The Referee will use the release of the ball from the passer’s hand as his guideline that the passer is now fully protected; once a pass has been released by a passer, a rushing defender may make direct contact with the passer only up through the rusher’s first step after such release"

2. The hit area was not illegal, Mahomes was in the air with neither foot on the ground, and Oliver was being "blocked/fouled" into a lower point of attack by the O-line(Oliver was held by the chiefs o-lineman and sort of tackled from behind). "A rushing defender is prohibited from forcibly hitting in the knee area or below a passer who has one or both feet on the ground, even if the initial contact is above the knee. It is not a foul if the defender is blocked (or fouled) into the passer and has no opportunity to avoid him". 

#50 Rousseau also hit Mahomes on this play, and was technically late as he takes 2 steps. He was also blocked/fouled from behind by the chiefs o-line. Roussea basically just loosely wrapped up Mahomes's legs from behind and bumps his head into Mahomes butt. Not enough force or violence to it to constitute a penalty

This was called holding 1 play before the roughing on Allen.  
https://twitter.com/awfulannouncing/status/1447416098446401537?s=20

https://twitter.com/awfulannouncing/status/1447417193654734850?s=20

There was an egregious missed holding call favoring the Bills on this play before the roughing takes place, can't find a clip of it. Guess the refs decided to let it go after the phantom holding on the previous play?
 
1. The hit was late. Clark takes one step after Allen released the pass and makes contact with Allen(legal). He then takes a 2nd step to start to drive Allen into the ground(Late, illegal). 

2. Clark illegally drove Allen into the ground and also landed on top of him with his bodyweight "When tackling a passer who is in a defenseless posture (e.g., during or just after throwing a pass), a defensive player must not unnecessarily or violently throw him down or land on top of him with all or most of the defender’s weight. Instead, the defensive player must strive to wrap up the passer with the defensive player’s arms and not land on the passer with all or most of his body weight."

3. #97 also dog piles onto Allen's legs 2-3 steps after Allen had released the pass. Not much force involved, but way late and unnecessary.

[ALF]

Bills penalties 10 for 103 yards , Chiefs  7 for 55 yards .  Chiefs 2 fumbles , 2 int  ,  Bills 0 turnovers

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=nfl+scores+week+5&oq=nfl+scores&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0i131i433j0i131i433i512l6j0i433i512j0i131i433i512.6447j1j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#sie=m;/g/11nmctrg9_;6;/m/059yj;ms;fp;1;;

[JoshAllin]

I don't understand why they don't have refs with ear pieces and refs in a booth to relay that info in realtime down to the field refs for a second opinion. Would seem to help with any doubt of being casted on to them

[Beast]

13 hours ago, fan_in_tx said:

With all due respect, I believe it was a make up call for the phantom holding call the play before.  No holding call then there is no need for Josh to be in that position and throw the pick.

 

How could it be a make up call from the play before? I didn't see the refs gathering, looking at a monitor, and discovering there was no hold by Morse on that play, did you?

 

Just like Oliver's RTP call, Clark's was boderline and got called. We all know the NFL is going to do their best to protect their star QB's and Mahomes and Allen are just that....stars that the NFL wants on display.

[Dr. K]

I agree. The refs make terrible calls all the time (including in Sunday night's game) , but I don't think there are any conspiracies. 

 

I do think there can be subconscious bias in some situations, but it's not because the refs are in on some fix.

Edited October 12, 2021 by Dr. K