Oh I wouldn’t worry about that, the ref’s would’ve just kept throwing flags til Green Bay got the score they needed.
I don’t have numbers to cite but I would guess that when you’re facing a field goal that short, your odds of making it are around 95%. There is a very low statistical occurrence of snap-to-holder failure or kicker miss.
Whereas the odds of your opponent driving seventy or eighty yards for a touchdown within ninety seconds might be around 20%, especially with a hurry-up offense. That’s significantly higher than the 5% chance of your field-goal attempt going awry.
Out of curiosity, did Green Bay set an NFL record for a winning team that first took the lead the latest in the game? (Not counting games that were decided in overtime.)
I went to bed during the 4th quarter not knowing who won. When I got up and watched the highlights, I was pretty aghast at how terrible those two crucial calls against Flowers really were. Completely altered the game in GB’s favor. And the non-call for PI on the deep ball Stafford threw was just as egregious. I simply cannot understand how you miss that call…like in the Saints game last season.
For the past several seasons, I’ve become increasingly convinced that the NFL’s rules are now so convoluted, and the instructions that they give to officials on enforcement are so obscure, that they’ve now reached the point where it’s impossible for the officials to accurately and fairly enforce the rules in real time. The officials are being told to keep on watch for so many things that they miss (or misinterpret) other actions by players as they occur at game speed.
The Packers benefitted from that last night (and the Lions got screwed by it). Next week, some other team will be on the receiving end of the horrible calls.
You’re not alone in that. This all stems from the push to do all that they can to help player safety. The NFL got such a black eye from the CTE reports that they tried to soften the game. But now they have rules that don’t work and can’t be properly officiated. I see many calls for them to simplify things and stop with all the ticky-tack details that people are supposed to somehow follow when flying around a field at superhuman speeds, and that a handful of guys in zebra stripes are supposed to catch in real time. It’s getting to be impossible.
Agreed. I think that there are three areas in which the NFL has, in the past decade or so, repeatedly rewritten the rules in attempts to make things clearer, but what they have wound up doing is make the rules more complex, less comprehensible, and nearly impossible for the officials to adjudicate on the field:
- What sorts of hits are illegal
- What is or isn’t a catch
- What is or isn’t pass interference
Ideally, the rules should be created in such a way that a knowledgeble fan* who is watching a game (as well as the players who are playing the game!) is able to understand why a flag is or isn’t thrown. And, even more importantly, if said knowledgeable fan is watching a replay of that play, it’ll become even clearer to the fan what the correct call should be – and the officials will make that call after the replay review.
We’re now in an era in which both of the above precepts are regularly being violated. That just causes frustration and anger with the fans, and with the players.
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- Admittedly, many knowledgeable fans’ perceptions become altered when the call (or lack of call) goes against their favorite team.
An example was a flag in the Seattle/Cleveland game. Wilson got pulled down as he threw the ball away and a flag was thrown. The reason was a horse collar tackle, because the jersey can’t be grabbed and pulled down on a QB at or above the nameplate when he is out of the pocket.
And I thought tax code was complicated.
I would go a step further and get rid of replay review (I know, I know, it sounds crazy!!!) Let’s go back to being purely what a human sees in real time.
Yes there will be errors, but there are errors now, so big diff, yah?
Whereas, if you aren’t going to get rid of replay review, then let’s go all in - each side gets an attorney to argue in their favor during each replay review. (I said it would be CRAZY!!!)
yea, the Seahawks would agree.
Oh wait, they don’t! They got the good end of a horrible call and won against the packers.
That didn’t count because that game didn’t have any real refs in it.
Oh, yeah, the so-called “Fail Mary.” As I recall it was that game that compelled the N.F.L. to get a contract done with the real refs.
Russell Wilson saved the NFL. 
(Goodell even admitted that the backlash from that play forced his hand.)
They were officially officials, and their officiating counted. The game does not have a * after it.
But they were replacement refs. Sure the game counted, but the officials were stand-ins while the real ones were on strike. Few people doubt that play would have happened if the real refs were officiating.
Is it really that rules have gotten more convoluted, or just that these days 2/3rds of the audience can instantly rewind every single play in slow-mo/freeze frame and the other 1/3 can find a GIF online within 30 seconds? I don’t think it’s particularly any harder to enforce the rules in real time now than say 20 years ago-- it was always impossible to perfectly call the rules; we just notice (and argue over) the imperfections now. It’s not like a pass rusher hands to the face is super convoluted and obscure. it’s no more difficult to call that now than 20 years ago (or whenever that particular rule was added). The referee wasn’t confused; they just couldn’t see perfectly in high-speed real time.
Probably a little of both.
I think that, in particular, the rules on legal vs. illegal hits, and the rule on what constitutes a catch, have been repeatedly massaged by the Rules Committee over the past decade, and much (if not all) of those interative changes have made things more complex, not less.
Regarding the rules on illegal hits, it seems to me (as a “knowledgeable” football fan) that there are a lot of situational differences in when a particular hit becomes illegal (e.g., quarterback in the pocket versus not in the pocket, defenseless ballcarrier versus not, etc.). It also seems that the officials have been given particular points of guidance on things to look for that constitute an illegal hit (such as a hand going to a quarterback’s head), which lead to roughing calls on incidental, minor contact, like this play from the Packers/Cowboys game.
In the case of the rule on a catch, it’s now a common refrain (among players, coaches, fans, and commentators) that “I don’t know what constitutes a catch anymore.” That’s hyperbole, of course, but the rule used to be pretty obvious and intuitive, and it isn’t anymore.