Today, the Dallas Cowboys take on the Green Bay Packers in a NFC Divisional Playoff game in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Last night, the Seattle Seahawks defeated the Carolina Panthers in Seattle, Washington in the other NFC game. The Dallas-Green Bay game is a TV ratings friendly matchup. So the events in the Cowboys victory over the Detroit Lions last week were disturbing for neutral fans with no rooting interest.
The National Football League and FOX Sports combined to make last Sunday's NFC Wild Card Playoff game between Detroit and Dallas into the WWE with the inept officiating, conflict of interest, and biased commentating. I swear I was watching old-school WWF/WCW/ECW...whatever wrestling. It felt to me and a lot of others on Twitter that this wasn't a normal controversy.
Football officials are human and mistakes just like players. When there are missed calls or perceived ones in the opinion of one team by officials, it seems like whining on most occasions. Very rarely, several officiating decisions with reasonable doubt will all go in the favor of one team and not the other. Sunday was a rarity.
Midway through the fourth quarter, Detroit was leading Dallas, 20-17, and their offense had 3rd down and 1 at the Dallas 49-yard line. Matthew Stafford, the Lions quarterback, threw a long pass intended for Brandon Pettigrew. Pettigrew and the Cowboys defender were fighting for position with Pettigrew in front. There was contact between the two players, they fell down, so did a yellow flag, penalty called.
The Head Judge, closest official to the play, signaled defensive pass interference against the Cowboys. Their sideline was right next to the play and screamed in anger. Offensive wide receiver Dez Bryant ran onto to the field without a helmet to argue the call. The head judge walked back toward the original line of scrimmage spot where the play started. He talked to referee Pete Morelli who then announced the penalty through his on-field microphone.
To this point, outside of Dez Bryant running on the field, everything is standard practice for a penalty decision and announcement in the NFL. The yard markers indicating the length needed to get first downs was moved forward. The ball was picked up by one of the officials and moved to the yard line where the penalty occurred.
Then, Morelli reversed himself and said no penalty would be called. No explanation was given. It was mind-boggling because it seemed like Hitchens ran up against Pettigrew's body. Why did the officials throw a penalty flag, announce it for everybody to hear, and then take it back? It made no sense.
Sometimes, officials take back penalties after talking to each other as a group, However, they always make a decision on whether there is a penalty before making an official announcement. In this case, they went backwards. The penalty was declared and told publicly before the officiating crew was 100 percent sure.
Detroit lost a first down deep in Dallas territory and were forced into 4th down. The Lions could have tried another offensive play. They only needed one yard to achieve the necessary yardage for a new series of downs. There was another option, they could punt the football away to Dallas and defense. Detroit was leading by three points, 20-17, so they didn't to score any more points. The Lions decided to punt and it backfired, the kick was very short and the Cowboys offense had great field position.
If the officials did their job, that above scenario doesn't happen. Also, the above paragraph and many other paragraphs in this entry don't get written. What a waste of space.
It got better, or worse, depending on your viewpoint on the Cowboys go-ahead touchdown. Tony Romo threw a 10-yard pass to Terrance Watkins in the endzone after scrambling away from Lions defenders. It appeared one of those Detroit players was illegally held from reaching Romo.
Later on, Lions wide receiver Calvin Johnson was clearly bumped illegally past the five-yard legal contact zone. That was on Detroit's last offensive chance, a 4th down play with just over a minute remaining.
While there was a brief discussion of the called-back penalty, there was none about the other questionable non-calls made by officials. Joe Buck and Troy Aikman didn't address how much the picked-up flag helped Dallas while hurting Detroit. You heard tons of praise for the Cowboys offense and defense. This was an ongoing theme throughout the game.
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