Sunday, September 11, 2005

The Phantom Menace

I have to hand a dollop of credit to the Detroit Lions. They are a mediocre to below average team that played mistake-free football.

The Packers are a mediocre to below average team that made a lot of mistakes. If the players continue to make shit-head mistakes as they did today, they've got a certain future in the Packers personnel department.

That said, the Lions probably do not beat the Packers if not for the Phantom Menace, and by that I mean the many imaginary and highly-questionable penalties called against the Packers.

Oh, boo hoo! Blame the refs cheesehead!

We all know I love finding fault with officiating at all levels of professional and college sports, but I don't make things up. The officials write their own material. I just point it out.

Ten of the Lions points came directly from officiating mistakes.

In the first quarter, the Lions had their drive extended several times with penalties. One such penalty which came on third down and gave them a new set of downs in the red zone. They proceeded to score a touchdown.

The penalty in question was "hands to the face". This penalty is meant to prevent two things: 1) to prevent players from striking the facemask of opposing players and 2) to prevent players from blocking by pushing against their opponents facemasks instead of pushing against their bodies. This penalty was NOT intended to be used for incidental, mild, and brief contact with the facemask.

The officials abused this penalty in today's game.

To be fair, I did see one case where Ahmad Carrol did push against the facemask of an opposing player. Once.

The call in question (that gave the Lions another chance at their first touchdown) was not even against Carrol. The Packers DB bumped the Lions receiver off the line by pushing him in the upper chest. In doing so, the DB's finger tips touched the lower portion of the receivers extended facemask and face shield. It did not warrant a flag.

The other penalty that led to points came on their field goal drive.

They had taken possession of the ball after a "fumble" by Brett Favre. It wasn't a fumble, as was clear in live action and on replay. It was an obvious forward pass.

But only part of the blame goes to the refs on this one.

Once again, for the FIFTH YEAR IN A ROW, Mike Sherman failed miserably in managing replays. This has been a consistent problem over his career and he's never fixed it. He failed to call a timeout or challenge the play, and the Lions got a gift. And three points.

So, the refs were my main irritant, but enough about them.

Days like today I would love to be in the press room when Sherman took the mike, I'd ask him one simple question.

Coach bubblepants, ...regarding the play calling in the second half ...did you:
a. Suffer a major brain aneurysm at halftime
b. Have your brain sucked out by aliens at halftime
c. Hand over the play calling to a dung tossing monkey
d. Let Rossley call the plays


I suspect the answer is c or d.