Buffalo Rumblings
After abiding by the 24-hour rule, I’m here with a few thoughts on the officiating
Hey everyone, it’s me! The ref apologist. I’m upset the Buffalo Bills lost in the AFC Championship game. I was irritated all week with the nonsense talk about the Kansas City Chiefs “always getting the calls,” and I was even more irritated to see multiple bad calls during the game that reinforced that narrative.
I’m not here to say officiating cost Buffalo the game. It sure didn’t help, however. I’ve waited (more than) 24 hours to clear my head like many people suggest, so here goes a short opinion piece on the matter.
I want to focus on two calls in particular, though there were several times the ball was spotted that I wanted a recheck — and multiple additional flags I felt could have been thrown. Let’s try to stick to Josh Allen being “stopped” on his now-infamous fourth-down try, and the “catch” by wide receiver Xavier Worthy.
Why these two? Well with most officiating mistakes they don’t stop the game to see whether or not they had it right. On both of these plays they did. Both were controversial, and many feel the video evidence conclusively favored Buffalo.
Being perfectly candid, I can see where perhaps they felt the Allen conversion was gray area enough to stick with the ruling on the field. Even though there were two different rulings on the field, I can be at peace with this one. My dilemma and consternation comes from the fact that it came in the same game as the Worthy play that was really an interception by safety Cole Bishop.
Objectively, it doesn’t matter. The two calls are independent. That said, a major focus on the NFL this week was the perception of lopsided officiating. When confronted with that narrative though, it’s very difficult to see it as anything other than a trend.
While I will argue that I see the call on the Allen play, I can’t for the life of me see the reasoning behind the Worthy ruling. With the call being a catch, and upheld through review, this means the narrative that the ball hit the ground before being secured doesn’t hold weight.
The question then becomes who has possession and when. I didn’t GIF this play because we’ve seen it a million times already, but Worthy’s one hand loosely over the ball doesn’t seem to be “simultaneously” gaining possession at the same time as Cole Bishop. Especially when Bishop’s hands/arms are the main reason that Worthy’s single hand is maintaining any contact at all thanks to being sandwiched in there.
Don’t get me wrong. Change both these plays and it’s not even remotely guaranteeing a Bills victory. I’m not even suggesting any conspiracy, bias, etc. Terrible calls happen and the Chiefs are an incredible team that played an incredible game.
What’s bothersome to me is that Buffalo once again fell short in a classic game and one of the...
