I thought they changed the facemask rule a few years ago so there’s no longer any distinction between incidental and flagrant. They’re literally citing the old version of the rule to justify yesterday’s non-call. And, even under the old rules, there would have been a 5-yard penalty for incidental versions of it.
I don’t know if this is post-justification, or if they still have double standards about what offensive and defensive players can do with their hands to faces.
You are right.
When I played football in High School, many moons ago, we were actually taught that if you grab the facemask to hold on, since the penalty was the same.
Then they changed it to 5 for incidental and 15 for grabbing to stop defenders from holding on.
Then they changed it back, and I don’t know why.
One of my pet peeves is the stiff-arm. You’ll see an offensive player throw out his arm, right into the face of a defender, the announcers praise and no one even mentions that a penalty is supposed to be called.
I didn’t have much of a dog in the fight yesterday, but I’m glad that play didn’t decide the game.
I think it boils down to the fact that the NFL will never admit that one of its officials missed an obvious call. The NFL is too arrogant to do that.
Maybe. Last time the Rams were in the SB, they literally got there based on a bad call. So, it can go both ways.
I only said the NFL was too arrogant to ever acknowledge that one of its officials missed a call. That was equally true with the missed call against the Saints three years ago, which was even more egregious.
I’ve seen my own team win a game based on a bad call, and another on a snowball, regular season. But the need for a champion overwhelms. They’d never admit the wrong team got to the SB.
Every Pro sport has missed calls. The athletes are going at top speed/quickness. The officials only have 1 look at a play. It is when slow motion is used afterwards on replay, mistakes are sometimes shown.
Yeah, sometimes it seems higher stakes in the NFL because there are only 17 games.
Olympic Snowboarding has a lot of drama right now because of this.
That’s a judged event. I saw something the other day where someone was complaining the judges lost their credibility, but I didn’t follow the specifics. There can be missed things, but judged events have other issues as well, subjectivity, and nationality bias.
100% true.
But, holding and pass interference in football are “allegedly” objective, but not really.
Good point. PI is both highly subjective and high impact, which is why it frustrates people so much. Holding is also subjective (every lineman violates the actual rule on almost every play, but it’s supposed to be hidden), but it doesn’t show as often or have as much impact.
The NFL can’t even define what a catch is. And I still don’t know what “a football move” is or why one is needed to define a catch.
Well…the refs atoned for it at the end when they called pass interference against the Bengals when the Rams were 3rd and goal from the 8…giving the Rams 4 tries from the 1 to take the lead. Trouble was…there wasn’t interference. So instead of 4th and goal where the Rams would have to go for it, they got first and goal from the one. I believe that the Rams are now okay with the facemask non call.
I saw that as interference too–had his hands all over his midsection–but it was closer than the earlier call.