Windy City Gridiron
Remembering the epic bad calls that have cost the Bears
Yeah, I’m still mad about it. The year, 2019. December. The place: Chicago, the Windy City. The gridiron of Soldier Field. Chicago Bears versus the Green Bay Packers. It was a scoreless game, and Cordarrelle Patterson, who was best known for his kick returning, was also one of the league’s elite gunners on punt kick coverage In this game, he was serving as a gunner on the Bears punt team. There was 6:59 remaining in the 1st quarter. Patterson raced down the field and timed a perfect hit, using his shoulder, on Green Bay’s Tramon Williams, dislodging the football, which Chicago then recovered in Green Bay territory. But simultaneously with that amazing hit, the yellow laundry came flying in: kick-catch interference, said the striped judges of the NFL tundra.
As replays (and FOX’s rules expert, Dean Blandino) made clear - there was no kick-catch interference on the play. So, instead of a turnover, and Chicago with the ball and a great chance to put points on the board, it was Green Bay that got the ball, deep in Chicago territory at the 35-yard line. The Packers would score a touchdown four plays later and go on to win the game 21-13. A crucial bad call at a game-turning point in the game.
Now, complaining about the refs is every NFL fan’s right, a right that we all exercise with furious abandon. And to be fair, those complaints tend to be one-sided, and usually the loudest from the fans of the team that lost. The Chicago Bears have had more than their fair share of losing, so perhaps that’s why it seems like the Bears tend to end up on the wrong side of the calls at crucial moments in crucial games. Maybe we just have bad luck. But it is hard not to slap on that tin-foil hat and look askance at the NFL refs when plays like the Patterson hit happen seemingly every year to the Bears. Be it the phantom flag on the Johnny Knox punt return fake out, the ridiculous low block call combined with the taunting call on Cassius Marsh to turn a signature win against the Pittsburg Steelers into a devestating loss, the Justin Fields roughing calls we’re still waiting for, or the no call pass interference on Claypool’s pass catch attempt against the Miami Dolphins... it sure seems like the NFL refs have it out for our boys in blue in orange.
