We’ve got Eagles/Ravens on here, and Ryans picks off a Flacco pass. I’m pretty sure he isn’t touched down, but the refs whistle it dead anyway. Then, there’s a dead ball ‘fracas’, and they call a 15 yard penalty on Baltimore. And then spend the next ten minutes discussing whether or not to apply the 15 yards from where Ryans is (badly) whistled down, or from the spot of the foul.
Just give the real refs what they want already. Sheesh.
Treat Motherfucking Richardson.
Some crazy games today. Giants/Tampa; Pats looking to steal one back from Arizona, Indy/ Minny.
ETA: NE missed the FG and lose.
Yeah, these guys suck out loud.
– Don’t how much of this is Tampa’s secondary being bad or New York’s WRs being awesome, but absolutely the only strategy that’s had any chance of stopping Hakeem Nicks and Victor Cruz has been to hold/interfere and hope that the refs don’t call it.
– And, in fact, there have been a lot of pretty bad no calls, on both side of the ball. The worst was a failure to call unnecessary roughness (defenseless receiver) on a would-be conversion when Kenny Phillips clearly launched himself into the TB receiver. (And the next play turned out to be a NYG interception.)
– Tied at 34 with 1:20 remaining in the 4th Quarter, Giants have 1st & 10 on the TB 11, and the Buccaneers have just 1 timeout remaining. Giants hand it off to Andre Brown on a run up the middle, and TB clearly intends to let him score. Brown makes the heads-up (and seemingly impromptu) decision to go down at the 1 so that they can prevent the Bucs from getting the ball back.
Ok, great, but then on the next play the Giants snap the ball with 34 seconds left and run right into the end zone (again, unchallenged). What the hell, guys?? The FG is 99% or greater, and you give up a TD on the ensuing Tampa drive more than 1% of the time, and obviously you *knew *that they wanted you to score, so what were you thinking? And, sure enough, after a short kickoff and two plays, the Giants were one *very *close overturned sideline catch from having the Bucs with a 1st down and 12 seconds to go on the Giants’ own 17 yard line.
Still, they won, so it’s all cool, and Eli once again proves that he’s super-clutch, even though “clutch” doesn’t exist (in anyone except Eli Manning).
Another 1 point win for Philly.
Pretty sure the Browns would’ve won with Joe Haden out there. It was a weird game - some very physical, brutal play from both lines and both front 7s, but horrible tackling and general ineptitude by both secondaries.
Browns offense looked like it might belong in the NFL, and all of the heroic performance of the defense from last week was mostly gone.
Patriots didn’t play well enough to deserve a win today, anyway. I’m a little worried about the pass protection this year - Brady was getting hurried by a not-so-special line this week, and an aggressive secondary. They didn’t compensate well, certainly not in time. Oh well, maybe they needed a smack in the mouth.
How the hell did Victor Cruz get to be a star? I saw him play a lot of games for UMass, and while he was clearly their top receiver, he didn’t impress me or anybody else as a future big-timer. But then Brady couldn’t beat out Drew Henson at Michigan, either.
Yay, Panthers!
There has really been some shit officiating today. Is it that different wherever these guys are from?
And was it just me or was there more on-field extracurricular chippiness today in a lot of the early games?
The Eagles are 2-0 despite having nine turnovers in their two games. This is exactly like last season–they move the ball effectively, almost easily, and sabotage themselves with stupid turnovers and ridiculous penalties. The difference this season is that their defense has finally stepped up and bailed the offense out of some tough spots. Last season the defense couldn’t get stops when it mattered. This season the defense is making plays at the right time (and looked outright dominant for long stretches at vital times). And Vick, while being reckless and careless as always, is at least turning it on when it matters and leading the Eagles to two game-winning, 4th quarter drives in two games. He did that zero times last season.
The refs in the Eagles game were atrocious, but no surprise there. They routinely had difficulty making spots, forgot the yardage on penalties (a couple tmes having to respot the ball two and even three times for a single penalty), tried their very, very best to give Baltimore a fumble on the most obvious forward pass of all time. The refs were far more balanced this game than the ridiculously one-sided calls of the Browns game, but then again it isn’t possible to be more lopsided, so that had to improve by default. Holding is perfectly exemplary of the screwy officiating so far–it happens on almost every play if you look for it, and yet the Eagles have been flagged for it NINE times in two games. Their opponents? Once. That’s bullshit.
From ESPN’s Dan Graziano:
This is really what needs to happen - no minced words, no “they’re doing the best they can,” no more “there were a few bad calls, but they went for both teams.” The replacement officials are awful, and the NFL’s product is suffering as a result. Kudos to Graziano, and I hope more people in the press follow his lead.
Nevermind.
ok then, nevermind here either.
Nevermind.
Nirvana!
I saw what you did there.
Hello, hello, hello hello.
Bills win against a bad team, but it’s better than a loss. And with the Pats loss and the Jets losing, the AFC East is a big pileup of WTF.
The Cowboys are getting their asses handed to them in Seattle.
The NFL needs to end this farce with the refs.
There have been some absolutely terrible calls in the Jets-Steelers game.