Mile High Report
I have never felt quite so exhausted after watching a football game as I did Sunday night. I owe my apologies to my neighbors for the late-night emotions, frustrations, and exclamations of joy (Thank you for your tolerance of our family being football fans).
I did not expect a close game this week. I did not expect the most exciting game of the year on a cold night in Maryland.
I have two big points to start off my review.
No seriously.
That football team gave the Denver Broncos their best shot, and it was damn near enough to topple them.
What I saw from them was a love of the game, no quit, and lots of talent on their roster. They need their starter back, and they need to make some improvements in their secondary. Do that, and they are going to do some damage in the playoffs next season.
Also, a big hat tip to Marcus Mariota. What a great game from their backup quarterback. I’d take him as a backup any day of the week. He played with grit and talent. I did not feel safe, pretty much on any snap with how their offense was playing.
I can not for the life of me understand how this crew of “referees” got paid to officiate an NFL game. I stopped counting at 6 false starts by the Commander’s that were obvious and went uncalled. I stopped counting at 5 blatant holding calls in the 2nd quarter that went uncalled (in case you wondered why the Broncos’ pass rush wasn’t working, it largely had to do with their line being able to get away with murder). The Commanders scored a touchdown on an obvious OPI pick. Bonitto got flagged for unnecessary roughness just for moving a guy when he got shoved into the dirt (both were penalties for the record…both players should have been flagged). Nix had a helmet-to-helmet hit that was as clear as day, where if you watch it, the umpire was looking into the stands like a moron, which was why it didn’t get flagged (the other ref didn’t have an angle to see it clearly from what I could see).
Amazingly, in overtime, the Commanders won the toss and said, “We want to kick it that way.” And the refs let them get away with it. The winner gets to choose to receive the ball or defer, while the loser gets to choose the direction.
And their ineptitude did not only happen to our team. We got an intentional grounding call because screw the Commanders, I guess. Pat Surtain had a clear early hit on a pass breakup that went unflagged. Our team had 2 false starts that I saw go unflagged.
I will affirm any and all calls of terrible officiating about this game by fans of either team without question. The only saving grace at all...
