With under a minute left in the 4th quarter, Tampa Bay scores to bring themselves within one point of the Redskins, 34-35. Tampa lines up for the extra point. The ball is snapped, the kick goes out, and the Redskins block it! However, the officials rule them offsides.
The ball is placed just outside the Redskins 1 yard line, and Tampa elects to go for two points.
Simms hands the ball off to Mike Alstott, who starts to blast ahead but is met by a wall of Redskins. In a stunning display of defense, the Redskins keep Alstott out of the end zone, as he falls forward and his elbow hits the turf recognizably short of the goal line. Game over, Washington wins 35-34.
EXCEPT THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN BECAUSE THE REFEREES FUCKED THE CALL, giving Alstott 2 points he didn’t earn. Then the referees fucked the chance to un-fuck the call on review, where it was quite clear that Alstott didn’t fucking make it across the goddamn fucking line.
Final score, Tampa Bay: 36, Washington: 35.
Fuck the refs who blew this one, fuck the Buccaneers for getting a win they didn’t deserve, fuck anyone who disagrees with me (because you’re wrong and I’m right), and fuck Chris Simms on general principle because I still hate that snotnosed little turd because of all the candyassed chokejobs he pulled off in college at Texas.
Come on. The replays were far from conclusive. There wasn’t a single one that showed where the ball was when the elbow went down, so they had to go with the ruling on the field.
I put 9 points on the 'Bucs, so if the Cowboys win, I win this week. $100 from the office pool is sweeeeeet. This week the shit-eating douchebag goatfelching referee motherfuckers make me happy.
Just like Simms to suck ass in college, and suck ass as a pro until today. Shitty call, refs. I wonder if the cowboys and eagles can both lose tomorrow…
Well I was at the Bears/49ers game watching the Longest Ever Kick Return In NFL History.
But, I sympathize. I had 13 points on the Redskins today. And I come from the same general area where Alstott played HS ball for arguably the most hated HS team in the area, who by the way got BEAT yesterday in the state playoffs, and which team I was playing against as a sophomore when I had my achilles tendon torn on a cheap play, thus ending my probably not too promising HS football career, but which I was enjoying the hell out of anyway.
I’ll tell you where the ball was not - in front of Alstott’s elbow. The replay may not have been totally conclusive, but that ball never got within a six inch sniff of chalky paradise. That was a hometown call, all the way.
(Looked for pics/video online but haven’t found any. If anyone does, please post the link here.)
Listen you! I won’t have my own words turned against me in some perverted display of logic! It was conclusive enough – there is no way to reasonably believe the ball was in any position to cross the goal line, relative to where Alstott’s leading elbow went down.
Hippy Hollow, I’m looking forward to seeing Texas in the Rose Bowl this year, if not the Redskins in the Super Bowl ™. I gather from your user name that you used to live around Austin…
Would that be Phil or Chris?
I’m sure any fan of any team can make the same claim with relative sincerity, but I’ve watched the Skins get shafted in away games by refs for as long as I’ve been following them.
Even as a lifelong fan, I have to say: if the Skins really wanted to win that game, their defense never would have allowed them to get into such a situation to begin with. It’s not that they deserved to lose, especially by a questionable call, but they took great pains to hand that game to the Bucs.
The funny thing about these types of calls is that you rarely see or hear about them in the media afterward. You typically don’t get 6 different angles on SportsCenter or any of the talking heads or journalists (except maybe within the market) even mentioning it being right or wrong. It just didn’t happen.
It’s long been true that, in order to win a game in organized sports, it is not enough merely to outplay/outscore the opposing team. You also have to beat the officials. There was flap a few years back over NFL officiating and John Madden, in perhaps the only intelligent comment he has made in the last 15 years, said words to the effect that the officiating was lousy when he was a coach, and it’s lousy today.
I believe that on-field NFL officials are, to this day, hired as part-time employees, without benefits. If still true, it is scandalous. However, even if they were hired on an equitable basis, they would still be human.
Suggestion: virtually, or completely, eliminate officials on the field. Every now and then, one of the little fuckers gets in the way of the play and affects the game significantly. Develop the technology for officials to view every single play from camaras positioned to display every angle the officials require. Make it almost impossible for non-calls/bad calls to happen, and quickly corrected when they do.
BTW, I’m a Giants fan, so the ‘Skins loss was ok by me. Based on what I saw, it looked like Alstott made it across. But there you are. Neither I, nor you, nor anyone should have to depend on officiating to determine our teams’ won-loss records.
At the two-minute warning of this game, GrizzWife calmly tells our five-year-old son (who’s happily sung the Redskins fight song with me during every Washington score) and our one-year-old daughter…
“Daddy’s going to be VERY loud for the next few minutes. But he’ll be okay… really!”
Sure enough…my voice this morning sounds like I’ve been eating concrete.
