One more MNF officiating gaffe

I remember watching Agnew let a punt hit the ground instead of fair catching it. The Lions lost what, 10 yards on the fortuitous GB bounce (even the field was against us). And I remember yelling at the TV, “why the F didn’t he go catch the ball, we woulda had better field position even if he just fair catches it”. Welp, there’s a little more to the story:

The Detroit Lions return man let a punt drop and bounce toward his end zone late in the third quarter against Green Bay. Which was sort of odd, because he seemed to be camped out in position for a fair catch at his 26-yard line. Instead, Detroit lost 8 yards of field position before the ball was downed at its 18-yard line.

Turns out, Agnew let the ball drop because it hit a wire that was strung up over the field for ESPN’s skycam, and he wanted to avoid a potential fumble.

“Yeah, it hit the wire – the camera wire,” Agnew said. “I didn’t know if there was a rule or anything.”

There is. Per the NFL rulebook, if a ball strikes a video board, guide wire, Skycam or any other object, the play is waved dead and the down is replayed at the previous spot.

In other words, Green Bay should have been forced to punt again. And considering how dangerous Agnew is with the ball in his hands, there’s no telling what might have happened on a re-do. Instead, the 53-yard punt stood and the Lions took over at their own 18-yard line. The ensuing drive went five plays for 8 yards.

Just add it to the list of suspect and outright blown calls that hurt Detroit in the one-point loss.

“Learn something new every day,” Agnew said.

Not to beat a dead horse, but dayum. The link goes on to talk about HCs around the league asking for a 8th official and/or a ‘sky judge’ that can review plays from up in the booth somewhere that can force a review. You don’t want games lasting for 4 hours or longer, but IMHO there are too many eff-ups around the league and something needs to be done about it.

Never noticed that, have to go back and look. If you can see it.

Officials will make some bad calls, no matter what. It’s getting worse and worse every year, though.

More rules put the officials in games more. There are rule changes & modifications every year, and every year somewhere between 80-100% of them dilute the game and make things worse.

Someone else nailed it in saying Goodell works for the owners. His job is to make more revenue for the league, and the owners are very happy with him. This problem is a problem for fans only. This is not a problem for the NFL, and that’s why they have no interest in fixing it.

I remember having a conversation with a young NBA fan after a horrible call on a Piston. He said, “Well that’s just how it works. When he gets more experience and proves himself, he will get the calls.” Sports ethics is a microcosm of what’s going on with ethics in teh country. Older dudes don’t think this shit is okay at all, but the youth are being conditioned to it. 10 years from now, we may not even recognize the NFL, the same way the NBA is total garbage now.

I’ve never seriously considered watching football, until that MNF game. I’m not there yet, but the seed came into my mind, that this is starting to have the same level of integrity of the NBA. If it gets to the point where I feel that fully in my heart, I won’t want to watch anymore.

Love football. Love my Lions. Refuse to pretend something is real, if it is obviously…blatantly…FIXED.

The biggest thing I love about sports is the purity of it. Two teams come out and point at each other…“I’m gonna kick your ass,” while the other team does the same. Then they go figure it out. There’s a purity to that. I always thought the world was a dangerous place, when I was growing up (I don’t feel that way, anymore), and in sports, nobody had an agenda. Nobody had an angle. Nobody was trying to manipulate anyone. It was clean and pure.

All of those things are starting to erode in football.

Guys, this is not a case of incompetence!
It’s bias at best, and corruption at worst.
The calls come at crucial, game changing moments. Look at the 3rd down plays in the 4th quarter. We weren’t allowed to make plays and Green Bay was given yards, and 1st downs. Every time!
It’s too perfect to be random screwups!

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Lesson learned though …

Everyone who catches punts and kickoffs on our team knows this now!

They need to have a signal to give the HC when it happens to call a red flag!!

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