I’d like to talk about this, and everyone’s reaction to it, a bit further.
I absolutely applaud the actions of the Texas student section, who delayed the game about 10 minutes by throwing every bottle they had onto the field after an absolutely TERRIBLE DPI call wiped out an interception that set Texas up at the Georgia 9 yard line.
After the lengthy delay, the officials got together and correctly made the decision to pick up the flag.
I have long been a proponent of being able to hold officials accountable to do their job correctly. When you or I doesn’t do our job at work, we get fired, but when an official can’t do their job, their employer makes excuses. It’s an absolute problem that leads to officials being able to do whatever they want when they get out on the field. A lot of these officials are also protected by unions, which that’s a whole other thing that I won’t get into with this post, but it still protects these officials from any semblance of accountability.
As Lions fans, we absolutely know how bad officiating changes the outcomes of games. We also know how officials face no consequences for making bad calls or simply failing to do the general procedure of their job (Brad Allen last year). It’s an epidemic at both major levels of the sport, and it has to stop.
I applaud the precedent that was set by the Texas student section, and let me tell you why. For anyone that tries to claim that the players were “in danger” when bottles got thrown on the field…let me show you this.
Yet somehow a tiny ass bottle getting thrown onto the field and likely hitting you in the helmet or the pads you’re wearing…THAT’S where the danger comes in??
You can get clocked by a safety coming across the middle or get pancaked by a 330 lb offensive lineman and be totally fine, but a bottle puts you in danger?
For anyone that tries to say that the officials can’t pick up a non-reviewable flag…yes they can. The Lions lost a ■■■■■■■ playoff game because of it when they picked up…guess what…a DPI flag in the Cowboys game in 2014. It happens all the time.
Any criticism of how the officials handled the situation should be as follows. Yes, they only picked up the flag after a lengthy delay and after they got bullied by the fans into doing their actual job (which I support). The flag was rightly picked up, and to set precedent, Texas should’ve been awarded a 15 yard unsportsmanlike conduct foul assessed on the home crowd…which has been seen in football before. But, I applaud the student section for stepping in and attempting to reintroduce “accountability” into the world of officiating.
And for anyone that has no idea what I’m talking about:
