There needs to be a thread of the officiating today

[pennstate10]

18 minutes ago, thewookie1 said:

Refs were awful and at times seemed to be in the Jags pocket. Rarely can refs cause continuous controversy like they did today. Unlike the last two Chiefs games where they bailed out KC with one specific call; the Bills were jobbed the entire 1st Half and then got beat up some more in the 2nd when the refs finally noticed the Jags were also breaking rules. 
 

Ed Oliver’s 2 penalties were nonexistent/ticky-tac 

 

Knox literally gets tackled on a play which doesn’t get a flag yet Johnson arm fighting down the sideline does.

 

The mysterious offensive pass interference on Davis’s 1st touchdown catch. 
 

Zay Jones batting a ball on the fumble was ify but the one on the inside kick was blatant. No flags.

 

We lost a timeout even though a Jags player was hurt; I’ve never seen to team not get their TO, in those circumstances, back prior to this game.

 

They ruled 2 bobbled balls to be catches for opposite reasons.

 

Poyers hit was ugly but should not have been called due to the situation. The ball was deflected and Poyer didn’t run into the play; he was literally standing and lowered his shoulder to brace for impact. Defenseless receiver calls are supposed to prevent a WR from getting destroyed by a full sprint DB as they hang in the air or the like. Not when they fall into a defensive player.

 

I will say the Allen vs Allen call was absurd as well but 1v10 on calls isn’t exactly a fair or reasonable exchange.

 

 

Couple of points here.

1)  I dont think Bills lost a TO due to injured player.  When there is an injury TO, clock starts when ball is signaled ready for play.  If Bills didnt take the TO, clock would have started when Jags player got off the field and ball signalled ready, and they wouldve used the entire 40 sec before getting the play off.  So no problem with that charged TO.

 

2)  Poyers flag was really soft.  Its a judgment call; I think its usually not called.

 

3)  The Allen v Allen didnt make any difference.  Bills accepted the other "roughness" call on that play.

[John from Riverside]

I thought the game was over officiate it not necessarily for us. They just had to have too much meantime, throwing those ***** flags.
 

But I didn’t know we were in trouble whenever they allowed a jags player to run up behind a bills, player and flat out, hit him in the head with no Foul after the play was over

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

4 hours ago, LabattBlue said:

Yawn.   Bills lose = whining about the officials. 

I didn’t see much complaining about the refs after the jets game 

[Warcodered]

4 hours ago, BBFL said:

Wasn’t the best that’s for sure but there was a substantial amount of times we could have taken the game from the Jags and pulled out a W. 
 

Lackluster for the whole first half from the Offense. Seemed like it kinda switched a little as the game wore on… O finally made an appearance when the D had finally reached its breaking point. Schedule/travel played its part but again, there was ample opportunity to leave there victorious. 

This is true, it did feel pretty one sided to me, but we still had an opportunity take this game back, still pissed me off.

[DapperCam]

I don’t know if one team benefitted more, but the refs made this game borderline unwatchable. No way I would have kept watching if I wasn’t a Bills fan.

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

23 minutes ago, pennstate10 said:

Couple of points here.

1)  I dont think Bills lost a TO due to injured player.  When there is an injury TO, clock starts when ball is signaled ready for play.  If Bills didnt take the TO, clock would have started when Jags player got off the field and ball signalled ready, and they wouldve used the entire 40 sec before getting the play off.  So no problem with that charged TO.

 

2)  Poyers flag was really soft.  Its a judgment call; I think its usually not called.

 

3)  The Allen v Allen didnt make any difference.  Bills accepted the other "roughness" call on that play.

That poyer flag was a huuuge momentum shift.  That would’ve been the best starting field position we had all game by a long shot 

 

as usual the discrepancy in offensive holding swung the game. There was a solid quarter where Lawrence was under siege and his entire offensive line was holding and it was only called against us 

Dawkins got hit with one that the jags were getting away with all day 

 

Edited October 9, 2023 by Generic_Bills_Fan

[Warcodered]

13 minutes ago, DapperCam said:

I don’t know if one team benefitted more, but the refs made this game borderline unwatchable. No way I would have kept watching if I wasn’t a Bills fan.

Well to clear this up we had essentially double the penalty yards.

[Zag20]

2 minutes ago, Generic_Bills_Fan said:

That poyer flag was a huuuge momentum shift.  That would’ve been the best starting field position we had all game by a long shot 

 

 

Yes and I believe after the did punt, we got a holding call on a fair catch, which out as back at the 7 or 8. A holding call on a fair catch.

[CodeMonkey]

5 hours ago, ChronicAndKnuckles said:

The Bills were completely out of their element today and their whole entire roster was decimated w/ injuries including their top 3 CBs on several series. Josh played like crap, but had zero run game to help him out. McD was completely outclassed by a SB winning coach. With that being said…

 

What the hell was that? Bills had 11 flags for 109 yards (Jags 8/56) thrown and seemingly every single time the offense began clicking. Just one after the other like clockwork. I know it’s low hanging fruit to pick on the refs, but today was as bad of an officiated game as I’ve ever seen. 

You can't have a Bills loss without this thread.  Just as 1 rebuttal, what about the roughing he passer in the 4th when Josh tucked the ball and lowered his head into the contact.  Some Bills fans just can't help but think as you do, but it's not one sided.  You have largely elderly men doing the best they can with ridiculous rules. Is it perfect, of course not.  But it's not some kind of conspiracy against the Bills either.

[bmur66]

Either the Bills were playing the refs or they were just playing that bad. Either way it was unwatchable. I found something else to do.

Edited October 9, 2023 by bmur66

[Saxum]

5 hours ago, Yobogoya! said:

It is illegal to swat the ball, but that play in real time it’s hard to say he wasn’t just reaching for the ball to grab it and momentum takes it out of bounds when he misses. 
 

Plenty of far more egregious calls to be mad at this game imo. 

 

IMO play should have been replayed rather than automatically given Jaguars player benefit of the doubt since there were 4 Bills players in area.

[Buffalo Barbarian]

They are paid to influence the game.

 

 

[Scott7975]

Josh actually didn't play like crap but whatever.

[1ManRaid]

2 hours ago, Generic_Bills_Fan said:

I didn’t see much complaining about the refs after the jets game 

 

Other than the blatant tripping that handed the Jets the win?  The one the player got fined for but no penalty (the story of our team's life)?

[gtw3]

6 hours ago, BuffaloBillyG said:

I try not to complain about refs too much. We see the plays at a slowed down speed and perfect television angle. They have a split second from one vantage point with bodies flying all over. Reffing a game is not as easy as it seems from the couch. On top of that a very unscientific research tells me that many fans who complain about officiating have very little knowledge about what the rules actually are. 

 

That said, today there were several calls that I wasn't completely sold on. And making it more difficult to know is that the broadcast did a completely horrible job showing replays of what happened. 

 

One thing I can say is that 2nd and 3rd team players are usually more susceptible to commiting fouls due to lack of reps. As are players that are fatigued (like, you know, jetlag). So, some calls I may agree were not the best but the idea that tired backups made a lot of fouls isn't far fetched.

I was going to come in here and chime in with my thoughts but then I read your post and it pretty much summed it all up.    Well said. 

[brianthomas]

i too was frustrated with the flags, with questionable calls that made you wonder if there was something else going on. So i googled the officiating crew during the game & this is what i found on Shawn Smith:

 

The Bills with Josh Allen at quarterback are 8-1 ATS with Shawn Smith, their best record with any referee since his arrival in Buffalo. Additionally, the Bills are 6-0 on the moneyline and ATS in their last six games with Shawn Smith officiating.

 

So this officiating crew had no anti-BILLS bias in their history. Just thought i'd add this bit since i noticed no one else did lol.

 

[Fan in San Diego]

6 hours ago, sdevo said:

Would have like to see a replay of the Oliver call hands to the face on jags first TD drive that extended the drive not sure if it was third down but it’s the third down calls that are just killer I thought the replays in key plays were lacking on the coverage of the game.

The flags came in late after the refs saw the jags needed their help. It’s games like this that make me think the the nfl is scripted. It was in the script for the jags to win today.

it was so unwatchable I turned off the game and went for a drive instead. Too many commercials too. There was football sprinkled in between 5 minutes of commercials. Unwatchable.

Edited October 9, 2023 by Fan in San Diego
Typo.

[Bookie Man]

It was an awful display. Phantom calls left and right.  

[JoPoy88]

8 hours ago, ChronicAndKnuckles said:

The Bills were completely out of their element today and their whole entire roster was decimated w/ injuries including their top 3 CBs on several series. Josh played like crap, but had zero run game to help him out. McD was completely outclassed by a SB winning coach. With that being said…

 

What the hell was that? Bills had 11 flags for 109 yards (Jags 8/56) thrown and seemingly every single time the offense began clicking. Just one after the other like clockwork. I know it’s low hanging fruit to pick on the refs, but today was as bad of an officiated game as I’ve ever seen. 

they’re terrible. They’ve been consistently terrible. They will always be terrible until the league grows a pair and stands up to the refs union. There’s no need for another thread, this is all old news.

 

 

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

56 minutes ago, 1ManRaid said:

 

Other than the blatant tripping that handed the Jets the win?  The one the player got fined for but no penalty (the story of our team's life)?

I don’t even think there was much complaining about that because they were pretty much in fg range regardless