Officiating is a no-win game, a necessity akin to a peas, high fiber and eight glasses of water a day.
Sports need officials, umpires and referees, no matter how terrible they all are. Their job is impossible, and even when they get it right, it’s probably wrong.
To all refs, just don’t decide the game. Let the players do that.
Just get out of the way. Don’t call it if you don’t have to.
The refs didn’t hand the Kansas City Chiefs their latest Super Bowl win, on Sunday against the Philadelphia Eagles, but one correct, yet incorrect, call made the win all but a certainty.
Even the guilty player admitted as much.
With 1:54 remaining in the Super Bowl, the Chiefs had the ball at the Eagles’ 15-yard line and faced a 3rd-and-8.
Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes’ pass for receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster sailed into the endzone, a good six yards too far; the ball hit the ground for an incomplete pass.
In a just world, the Chiefs kick the field goal, break a tie, and take a 3-point lead. The Eagles, with one timeout, regain possession with a shot to tie, or take the lead.
This is sports. This is the NFL.
“Just” is subjective, and up for independent booth review.
On that third down play, officials called Eagles defensive back James Bradbury for holding; Smith-Schuster’s route went inside, before he changed directions with a hard cut, which caused Bradbury to reach out and briefly/barely hold Smith-Schuster.
Even Bradbury admitted he grabbed Smith-Schuster, but hoped the officials would let it slide.
They didn’t.
They should have.
Smith-Schuster was not going to catch that ball.
Ex-Dallas Cowboys fan, and semi-famous basketball player, LeBron James grabbed his phone to Tweet out a response that spoke for millions of viewers: “His hand on his back had no effect on his route! This game was too damn good for that call to dictate the outcome at the end. Damn! By the way I have no horse in the race. Just my professional opinion.”
The Chiefs were given a first down. The Chiefs drained the clock. The Chiefs kicked the Super Bowl-winning field goal with eight seconds remaining.
This is an example where the officials got it right, and it’s still wrong.
The same thing happened one year ago in the Super Bowl between the Bengals and Rams.
Trailing 20-16, the Rams had a third-and-goal from the Bengals’ 8-yard line with 1:47 remaining in the game; quarterback Matt Stafford’s pass was incomplete. It should have set up a decisive fourth down play.
Instead, the refs called Bengals linebacker Logan Wilson for holding. That infraction looked less egregious than Bradbury’s hold.
The Rams were given a first down, and scored the game-winning touchdown a few plays later.
Look at the stat sheet of these last two Super Bowls, and the refs were non-factors.
In the Super Bowl last year, the Rams were penalized twice for 10 yards; the Bengals’ four times for 31 yards.
On Sunday, the Chiefs were penalized three times for 14 yards; the Eagles’ six for 33 yards.
From 35,000 feet, no one can say the officials had anything to do with the outcome of either game.
From field level, the officials blew one whistle too many.
Unless the infraction affects the outcome of the play, or makes it impossible for the player to do his job, don’t call it.
In the moment, the ref has an impossible job; when Bradbury reached out to alter Smith-Schuster, it’s a penalty. It was also a nothing.
Again, Smith-Schuster was not going to be able to catch up to that pass.
Typically in any game officiating tends to balance itself out; both teams benefit from questionable, to bad, calls.
In sports’ collective effort to appease everyone, it has all gone too far in an extreme direction that every single step on every single play is over analyzed.
The players are too big. The players are too fast. There is no way to catch it all.
There should be some natural evolution to the middle, and an effort in all sports to “let them play.”
That doesn’t mean we need a return to 1970s era NFL, 1980s NBA, or 1990s NHL when “let them play” meant a range war. It means a call to find a middle ground.
Officiating aside, the Rams were better than the Bengals last season, and in that Super Bowl. The Chiefs were better than the Eagles on Sunday night.
The Eagles could not stop the Chiefs throughout the second half, and Kansas City’s quarterback is too damn good.
From a bird’s eye view, the refs did their job.
From field level, they threw one flag at the wrong time. It was the correct call by the rules, and the incorrect call for the game.
We don’t expect perfect games. We don’t expect refs to be anything other than human.
We would all prefer if they just made more of an effort to stay out the way.
