Monday, December 3, 2007

Was That The NBA?

Just finished watching the Monday Night Football game against Baltimore and New England and all I can think is that David Stern has had a hand in preparing NFL officials. It sucks for the NFL that they want an undefeated team so badly because all of a sudden they started calling every play against the Ravens. On the Patriots final drive they converted a couple of 4th downs, well saying they converted them would be too generous. The referees decided after 59:30 of tough, hard-nosed football that they were going to call every ticky-tack foul they could. The most egregious penalty was on 4th and 5 from the 13. A touch by a Baltimore defender was called holding and as I watch the highlights on ESPN it’s no wonder they didn’t show a replay on the worst holding call of the weekend. If the NFL routinely called plays as closely as this one each game would average 40-45 penalties. I could have sworn I was watching David Stern’s referees directly change the outcome of games with selective penalty enforcement.

I definitely was not the only one that thought the referees decided they needed to do their part to keep the Patriots undefeated. After the Patriots scored on a catch that certainly could have been overruled but wasn’t, Bart Scott of the Ravens accumulated 30 yards in penalties. The referees called an unsportsmanlike penalty on Scott so he picked the flag up and threw it in the crowd. I thought it was great because it showed how much emotion the Ravens defense played with and how unfortunate it was that the referees would play such a crucial role in the game.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I would have to agree. It was terrible! I also happen to hate the Patriots! I mean who can really like a team that CHEATS! I don't understand why the referees needed to be biased, New England has all the defensive tape they need, right?