14-2 edge in penalties. B. friggin' S.

[TC in St. Louis]

Ok. Not acting like some holier than thou guy who accepts what happens and has some higher form of logic.

 

I sat in the bar with about 50 Bills fans today, and it was pretty clear to all of us that

1) The Pats tackled our kicker and there was no flag, no replay, no mention by announcers.

2) Pats jumped offside on the play prior to the safety. No replay, no mention by the announcers.

3) The interception....whistle blowing the play dead was b.s., and the penalty flag seemed to have been thrown from the stands, it was almost a yardage marker, it had nothing to do with the play. Clements' block had absolutely zero impact on the return. It would've been interesting to have the refs explain exactly why they stopped the play.

4) The call on Royal was a Royal shaft. The flag was tossed by the ref after it was clear the Bills had earned a first down. It was a great catch, and the guy who fell down after being dusted by Royal actually made the stop, so who gives a !@#$? It was a mickey mouse call that had major impact on the outcome of the game. If they used similar standards to call infractions for the entire game, there would've been 100 penalties today. This is football, people bump into each other.

5) The Bills were meant to lose today. The referees believe in the Pats, and they favored them.

 

You may disagree, but you are kidding yourselves. The outcome of that game was affected by the officiating. The Pats had 2 penalties for 5 yards. We had 14. Come on.

 

Yes, it is 9 hours later, and I am not over it. Here's a tip from me to me: Get over it.

[smokinandjokin]

The block in the back calls were killers. Clements and Royal may not have pushed the Patriots, but they did have their hands on their backs as both players went down. I think the first guy was going down on his own to try to tackle Whitner, and on the second one, Vrabel may have felt the contact and exaggerated a bit of a dive. Smart play if he did. Royal had no business with his hands on the back in that situation. Even a good clean block wouldn't have mattered- Price had the 1st and was going out of bounds.

 

I question the discrepency in penalties..Only two for the Patriots??? Puhlease. But I don't argue those two blocks in the back. You see similar plays called all of the time against every team (well, almost every team...) The Bills just have to be smarter in those spots.

[billieve2006]

According to the Box Score on ESPN, the Pats had 1 penalty for 5 yards!

 

http://sports-att.espn.go.com/nfl/recap?gameId=260910017

[gmac17]

and it wasn't an on field penalty - it was an illegal substitution.

 

First game of the season and not a single offsides, false start or hold - amazing!

[ACor58]

It's not amazing when the refs refuse to call penalties against them.

[Ray]

It's amazing the Bills played the Pats in Foxboro to a 19-17 loss when the team they played "played" flawless error free no penalty football. When was the last time you saw a game where a team had NO penalties--other than an illegal sub. No holding, no offside, all penalty free blocks, all penalty free running into the kicker/punter. Simply amazing! Do you think we get those calls here against the Pats in October? Not a chance!

[Hollywood Donahoe]

The Pats had 2 penalties for 5 yards.  We had 14.  Come on.

Your numbers are off. The Patriots had one fewer penalty than you say, and the Bills had SEVEN fewer.

 

http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/teamstats/NFL_20060910_BUF@NE

[5 Wide]

Your numbers are off.  The Patriots had one fewer penalty than you say, and the Bills had SEVEN fewer.

 

http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/teamstats/NFL_20060910_BUF@NE

769367[/snapback]

 

 

Anyway, even the most hell bent fan has to admit that not having one live action penalty the whole day is suspicious. Schobel was getting the arm bar coming around the corner consistently. I admit the Bills didn't close the game when they had the chance, but come on, not one damn flag, that's absurd.

[West Hollywood Donahoe]

I hole-heartedly believe the referees saw Whitner step out of bounds, and blew the whistle. Just because the film looks like he was in bounds by more than a foot doesn't make a bit of difference, what with all the video editing tools available today.

[Pyrite Gal]

Your numbers are off.  The Patriots had one fewer penalty than you say, and the Bills had SEVEN fewer.

 

http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/teamstats/NFL_20060910_BUF@NE

769367[/snapback]

 

 

I think the most amazing thing here is that TC's numbers are way off, but the "real" results 7 penalties on the Bills and 1 on the Pats still indicate a game where the results were strongly in favor of one team over the other.

 

There can be a number of explanations for this such as they younger team simply being less disciplined and making more mistakes and the older team having gone through a # of high pressure situations and thus they played more disciplined ball.

 

In fact, I think this was part of the explanation.

 

However, I think it is hard to look at the actual plays of this game and try (its hard for us partisans) to be objective and conclude that there were simply a number of bad calls and questionable non-call by the refs which seemed to advantage the home team and the team expected to win with the script of conventional wisdom for this game.

 

Clearly all fans rant that their team got screwed by the refs while the other team was helped, but I think it is hard to look at the particular plays of this game (like the flag/whistle on the Whitner interception) and no go huh? or look at non-calls like a couple of the plays where rushers "ran into" Moorman and say "what?"

 

These are simply the breaks and there is really no choice but to suck it up and move on. However, when the Pats come to town and if the refs happen to badly blow a couple of calls (or make bad calls on things like the coin flip as they have done and it advantages the Bills, I will note that it is too bad they influenced a game, but overall the scales of justice will be balanced.

 

The Bills gave this one away against a not very good team that played better than them and the refs helped the not very impressive Pats in gaining this win.

[buffaloboyinATL]

and it wasn't an on field penalty - it was an illegal substitution.

 

First game of the season and not a single offsides, false start or hold - amazing!

769201[/snapback]

 

I won't go through a list list of them, but as an example, Shoebel was clearly held on one of the plays where he batted down Brady's pass. The announcers pointed this out, along with several other calls and spots where the Bills were screwed. I agree that we lost because of our inability to stop the run and TE pass when it mattered, but the fact remains that the officials called a one sided game.

[MadBuffaloDisease]

Your numbers are off.  The Patriots had one fewer penalty than you say, and the Bills had SEVEN fewer.

 

http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/teamstats/NFL_20060910_BUF@NE

There were 14 called penalties but only 7 accepted against the Bills versus 2 called against the Patriots and one accepted.

[Hollywood Donahoe]

There were 14 called penalties but only 7 accepted against the Bills versus 2 called against the Patriots and one accepted.

False. The Patriots declined only one penalty that was called on Buffalo. You can count them yourself here.

[MadBuffaloDisease]

False.  The Patriots declined only one penalty that was called on Buffalo.  You can count them yourself here.

Thanks. I didn't want to count them myself.

[BuffOrange]

The only one that really bothered me was the offsides before the safety. It was so blatant right over center and impossible to miss. Then they called the SAME EXACT thing against the Bills on the next possession. But as Schope said it's the NFL why are you surprised. I hate the Giants but they got hosed as bad or worse than us last night.

[Toledo Bill]

I couldn't agree more that there was a discrepency in the way the penalties were called.

I would believe, however, that this is an ongoing situation that never really changes. Teams that are on a roll for several years tend to get the benefit of the calls. One reason is that they are generally playing better than their opponents... but also due to the officials giving the proven, "better" team more breaks. I would wager that during the Bill's heyday that they received similar breaks, all the while having the weaker opponents complaining about the calls. It doesn't make it right, but I would not be surprised if this is the pattern.

[Like A Mofo]

Another year, another game at New England, another 4th quarter where Belicheck gets most of the calls in the 4th. Funny how the Bills were the only team committing mistakes in the 4th.

 

It is the same old story, just let it go everyone.

 

SO Hollywood and other Pats trolls here, feel free to reply to me and give me more info to get yourselves off the day after the game. Hope you feel good about it.

[Marv Levy]

I still don't understand the call on the 3rd and 2 when we got the first down (4th quarter). Next thing I know, its a penalty (which was never shown or explained) and we end up punting (I think). It just pisses me off that nothing was explained and this was a major reason the Bills lost. They could have kept going, since it was a first down and probably at least gotten 3 which would have made it 20 - 14 BUF.

 

But alas, playing in New England, there had to be a call against us at a crucial time. Another screwed call. Fuggin bastards!!

[AJ1]

The block in the back calls were killers.  Clements and Royal may not have pushed the Patriots, but they did have their hands on their backs as both players went down.  I think the first guy was going down on his own to try to tackle Whitner, and on the second one, Vrabel may have felt the contact and exaggerated a bit of a dive.  Smart play if he did.  Royal had no business with his hands on the back in that situation.  Even a good clean block wouldn't have mattered- Price had the 1st and was going out of bounds.

 

I question the discrepency in penalties..Only two for the Patriots??? Puhlease.  But I don't argue those two blocks in the back.  You see similar plays called all of the time against every team (well, almost every team...)  The Bills just have to be smarter in those spots.

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I saw a baker's dozen of the same kind of in the back blocks and worse by the Patriots in the same game without a single penalty. The game is rigged in favor of the Patriots and the league acquiesces in that fact!

[Mike formerly from Florida]

I saw a baker's dozen of the same kind of in the back blocks and worse by the Patriots in the same game without a single penalty.  The game is rigged in favor of the Patriots and the league acquiesces in that fact!

769478[/snapback]

 

Yup.