Super Bowl Post Game Thread

[Hapless Bills Fan]

1 minute ago, What a Tuel said:

I'm not sure why people think that 1) officials changed how they are calling 2) players thought grabbing a face mask and twisting their head around was green lit after the no call? We didn't see a free for all of helmet twists, so not sure how later on defensive holding calls are wrong and changing the calls?

 

I'm not "people", but speaking for myself, I think the point isn't that one specific type of penalty was "green lit" - it was that overall, the attitude from the refs on defensive holding and offensive or defensive DPI was pretty clearly "let 'em play, we're gonna keep the flags in our pockets".

 

I think that the officials changed how they were calling the game because for the first 58:13 of the game, they called 3 penalties: a delay of game, a false start, and an unnecessary roughness (after a sack, things getting chippy on the lines).  No DH, no DPI , no OH though all were pretty clearly occurring.

 

Then in the last 1:47 of the game, they called a DH, a DPI, an UR on a DB, and an offensive holding.

 

That appears to be a change in how/what the officials were calling - unless you believe that none of the above in fact occurred earlier in the game.

[Billsfan1972]

I saw Higgins facemask on Ramsey immediately.  It was obvious. 

 

As for the defenses, both played well, but I wasn't impressed by either QB's play overall, though stats show they both played okay. 

[Billsatlastin2018]

4 hours ago, SoMAn said:

If I were in Zac Taylor's shoes and it wasn't under 2 minutes, I would have challenged that spot. 

The ball was clearly as far as the 'L' in the NFL shield at midfield. The officials spotted it about a yard further back. Even from the reverse angle, using the numbers painted on the field for reference, it easy to see how far the ball was before the runner was pushed back a yard.

 

It may still have been short, but only by inches if it were spotted where I believe it should have been.

Between that spot and some of the dubious calls that more or less gave the Rams a gimme touchdown, I'd be pissed if I was a Bengals fan.

 

I did think of that. But, he definitely was short- regardless.

 

That idiot 3rd Down call, preceded by a stupendously stupid 2nd Down throw away, doomed them!

 

The Bungles HAD to make that First Down to get closer for the FG or 1-2 heaves into the End Zone. Wasting a down, at that juncture, on that field was suicidal!

[BillnutinHouston]

14 hours ago, No_Matter_What said:

My hot take: This was the last SB Joe Burrow has ever played.

 

Did you intentionally write that as a statement of fact and not opinion?  As written, its not a hot take at all, in fact it's 100% factually correct as of today. 

[Steptide]

Well that stings a little.... Poor Bengals fans

 

 

[Shaw66]

49 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

I'm not "people", but speaking for myself, I think the point isn't that one specific type of penalty was "green lit" - it was that overall, the attitude from the refs on defensive holding and offensive or defensive DPI was pretty clearly "let 'em play, we're gonna keep the flags in our pockets".

 

I think that the officials changed how they were calling the game because for the first 58:13 of the game, they called 3 penalties: a delay of game, a false start, and an unnecessary roughness (after a sack, things getting chippy on the lines).  No DH, no DPI , no OH though all were pretty clearly occurring.

 

Then in the last 1:47 of the game, they called a DH, a DPI, an UR on a DB, and an offensive holding.

 

That appears to be a change in how/what the officials were calling - unless you believe that none of the above in fact occurred earlier in the game.

Yes, this is exactly the right point.   

 

One of the reasons the Bills lost to the Chiefs last year in the Conference Championship game was that the Chiefs played remarkably physically against the Bills' receivers.   There were a lot of plays that were clear penalties based on how those plays were called in the regular season.   The officials know, however, that the players are amped and are going to play the game with more intensity than during the regular season, and they know that if they call the game the way they call the regular season, there will be flags all game long.  They know they can't do that, so they dial it back.   It happens in the playoffs every season. 

 

So, here we had a game where the officials dialed it back from the beginning, expecting playoff-level intensity, and (I'm just speculating here, but it's the way it looked to me) the defensive backs never really raised the intensity of their play over the regular season level.   You had fairly normal plays in the defensive backfield, and similarly fairly normal plays on the line of scrimmage (so far as holding is concerned), but you had the officials thinking "I'm not calling the ticky tack stuff."   The result was practically no penalties being called.  

 

Then, for whatever reason, late in the game it was as though the officials said, "well, if you're going to play like it's the regular season, we're going to call it like the regular season."   

 

The real point, as you've said, is that the fans don't like those calls at the end of the game, and it's also very difficult for the players to have the standards change with five minutes left.  also 

 

By the way, I also thought the officials got hyper-technical on the clock stoppages in the Bengals' last drive.   There were two plays, maybe in a row, where the receiver caught the ball and almost immediately went out of bounds.  On both plays, the official didn't stop the clock.  I don't know exactly how the rule is written, but during the season, the officials only refused to stop the clock if the receiver was clearly giving up yardage to get out of bounds.   Both of the plays last night, if the receiver gave it yardage it was truly negligible, and it wasn't even clear that he was giving up yardage at all.  The first time, the Bengals didn't say anything, and the clock ran down below a minute.  The second time, they were forced to take a time out, and Burrow was looking around as if to say, "why isn't the clock stopping?"  It was just another example of how the officiating got hyper-technical at the end of the game.  It didn't affect the outcome, of course, but it's also curious that these hyper-technical calls disproportionately went against the Bengals.  

[QCity]

 

[Talley56]

Everyone Else: That was a good game, that halftime show, and those commercials, wow.

 

Me: Humph! That should have been the Bills winning the Super Bowl

[Shaw66]

16 minutes ago, Steptide said:

Well that stings a little.... Poor Bengals fans

 

 

Wow.  

 

Gotta say, however, that one reason the Bengals lost was that Burrow's pocket awareness was pretty bad all night.   He needed to be bailing out of there much more quickly, and he paid time after time.   That final play may not have been one of those - Donald sprung free in a sneaky fashion and surprised Burrow, but even so, the pocket was collapsing pretty quickly.  Allen and Mahomes wouldn't have taken so many sacks. 

4 minutes ago, QCity said:

 

Oh, great. 

 

Pretty clear to me. 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

 

In general, thoughtful response and good post, but I'm going to hone in on this point:

17 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

One of the reasons the Bills lost to the Chiefs last year in the Conference Championship game was that the Chiefs played remarkably physically against the Bills' receivers.   There were a lot of plays that were clear penalties based on how those plays were called in the regular season.   The officials know, however, that the players are amped and are going to play the game with more intensity than during the regular season, and they know that if they call the game the way they call the regular season, there will be flags all game long.  They know they can't do that, so they dial it back.   It happens in the playoffs every season.

 

I don't think this is correct, on several points.

 

I don't think there's any post season/regular season rational and methodical decision to not call PI or to call it differently in the postseason. 

 

I think it just varies from crew to crew.  Example: in last year's Superbowl, it seemed pretty clear that the Chiefs DBs were being called for DPI that went uncalled in the AFCCG.  Likewise, I seem to remember that GB got flagged for some critical DPIs in the NFCCG.

 

As for "flags all game long", I think the coaches and players make a study of the tendencies of specific referees, and then the top players adjust how they play based on how the refs are calling the game.

 

Of course the key point we both seem to agree on, is "just call the game consistently"

 

 

16 minutes ago, QCity said:

 

 

Certainly appears to be lined up in the neutral zone!

33 minutes ago, Steptide said:

Well that stings a little.... Poor Bengals fans

 

 

 

My inner voice wonders if there might have been OPI involved,as on the Higgens play that sent Ramsey to the ground

[Hapless Bills Fan]

34 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

By the way, I also thought the officials got hyper-technical on the clock stoppages in the Bengals' last drive.   There were two plays, maybe in a row, where the receiver caught the ball and almost immediately went out of bounds.  On both plays, the official didn't stop the clock.  I don't know exactly how the rule is written, but during the season, the officials only refused to stop the clock if the receiver was clearly giving up yardage to get out of bounds.   Both of the plays last night, if the receiver gave it yardage it was truly negligible, and it wasn't even clear that he was giving up yardage at all.  The first time, the Bengals didn't say anything, and the clock ran down below a minute.  The second time, they were forced to take a time out, and Burrow was looking around as if to say, "why isn't the clock stopping?"  It was just another example of how the officiating got hyper-technical at the end of the game.  It didn't affect the outcome, of course, but it's also curious that these hyper-technical calls disproportionately went against the Bengals.  

 

I can't figure out the clock stoppage rules at all.

 

Here's the NFL Rulebook if anyone wants to try to sort them

https://operations.nfl.com/the-rules/2021-nfl-rulebook/#rule-4.-game-timing

 

I don't see anything about refusing to stop the clock if the player is considered to "give up yardage to get out of bounds"

[Billsfan1972]

49 minutes ago, Steptide said:

Well that stings a little.... Poor Bengals fans

 

 

They needed 1 yard.  Why is your best receiver going long?  Those one yard completions should be simple.  BTW Burrow had no way of seeing that as the already headed to the ground.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

5 minutes ago, Billsfan1972 said:

They needed 1 yard.  Why is your best receiver going long?  Those one yard completions should be simple.  BTW Burrow had no way of seeing that as the already headed to the ground.

 

It's a point.  The Bengals had 43 seconds left at that point and could have got the yardage they needed for a FG and OT with a fresh set of downs

[Success]

9 minutes ago, Billsfan1972 said:

They needed 1 yard.  Why is your best receiver going long?  Those one yard completions should be simple.  BTW Burrow had no way of seeing that as the already headed to the ground.

 

I thought the playcall was kind of inexplicable there. Burrow was dropping back like it was 3rd and 5. 

 

That isn't the kind of play you want your QB surveying the field.  It should have been a quick slant or jet sweep or something quick.  The Bengals kind of blew it at the end.

 

The Rams deserved the win. In a very defensive 2nd half, they were the team that put together the one big drive to win it.

 

[CapeBreton]

Still can't believe we wasted a year of Josh Allen greatness. Just so sad seeing a terrible Super Bowl between the Rams/Bengals knowing full well that Allen would have crushed those teams. 

[Success]

3 minutes ago, CapeBreton said:

Still can't believe we wasted a year of Josh Allen greatness. Just so sad seeing a terrible Super Bowl between the Rams/Bengals knowing full well that Allen would have crushed those teams. 

 

People keep saying that, but we didn't crush too many good teams this year.

 

If it was Bills/Rams, it would have been a dogfight, imo.  50/50.

 

[Warcodered]

 

[Billsfan1972]

24 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

It's a point.  The Bengals had 43 seconds left at that point and could have got the yardage they needed for a FG and OT with a fresh set of downs

Lot's of time, but a first down was all that mattered at that point.  

[dave mcbride]

2 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

I'm not "people", but speaking for myself, I think the point isn't that one specific type of penalty was "green lit" - it was that overall, the attitude from the refs on defensive holding and offensive or defensive DPI was pretty clearly "let 'em play, we're gonna keep the flags in our pockets".

 

I think that the officials changed how they were calling the game because for the first 58:13 of the game, they called 3 penalties: a delay of game, a false start, and an unnecessary roughness (after a sack, things getting chippy on the lines).  No DH, no DPI , no OH though all were pretty clearly occurring.

 

Then in the last 1:47 of the game, they called a DH, a DPI, an UR on a DB, and an offensive holding.

 

That appears to be a change in how/what the officials were calling - unless you believe that none of the above in fact occurred earlier in the game.

Bill Barnwell's column today was interesting. He pointed to another infamous playoff occasion where the flags flew late in the game buy not for the first 58 minutes--TB vs GB last season:

 

'We know the NFL has a long track record of trying to avoid flags in big games. Teams use that information to their advantage. As former Patriots executive Scott Pioli noted, the Patriots deliberately played more physically in the conference title games and Super Bowls, knowing referees were unlikely to call penalties. If you watch any game as closely as we watch the Super Bowl, you're going to see missed calls on both sides.

 

The bigger issue for me is the timing of the calls. Like a strike zone in baseball, players generally seem to be comfortable with games being called loosely or tightly by the refs, as long as they can get a sense of what that is early in the game and adjust accordingly. In this case, in a game in which the refs seemed comfortable with players grabbing and tugging in coverage, Wilson was flagged for something that I'm sure other defenders on both sidelines did earlier in the game without a penalty. (Of course, the Bengals have also benefited from some questionable missed calls throughout their run, most notably against the Chiefs in the regular season.)

 

This is the second time in two seasons that we've seen officials let things go to a dramatic degree before cracking down with the game on the line. Last time around, it was in the 2020 NFC Championship Game, where the Buccaneers and Packers basically played out a Mutant League Football game for 58 minutes. In the final two minutes, though, Kevin King was called for a defensive pass interference penalty on third down, extending Tampa Bay's final drive and eventually allowing it to run out the clock.

 

We now have two data points from two different referees suggesting that the league might allow teams to go all-out for the first 58 minutes before encouraging referees to crack down in the final two minutes of games. When coaches are instructing their players in next year's conference title games and Super Bowl to play more aggressively than they would in a typical contest, they might also need to tell their defensive backs and linemen to get back to normal after the two-minute warning in the second half.'

 

https://www.espn.com/nfl/insider/insider/story/_/id/33284366/how-rams-came-back-beat-bengals-super-bowl-defensive-adjustment-inevitable-cooper-kupp-star-performances
 

[Success]

People are complaining about the refs too much, imo.  

 

Even that holding call at the end, while bad, wasn't completely phantom.  From one angle that they showed, it looked like he was grabbing the jersey.  It was flimsy, but that wasn't the reason the Rams won the game.

 

If I'm a Bengals fan, I'm not thinking about the one bad call. I'm thinking about all of the chances the Bengals had in the 2nd half to put that game away.  When they got that pick early in the 2nd half, they were in perfect position to go up by 2 scores - which would have basically secured the victory in that game.