Brick-By-Brick, the NFL Losing Me As A Fan

[DCbillsfan]

11 hours ago, nucci said:

Neither do I which is why I didn't start watching till 630pm

I turned it on just in time for the coin flip, and even then they wasted quite a bit of time before the kickoff.

[Southern_Bills]

11 hours ago, nucci said:

Eagles player admitted to holding. If that was a Bills receiver and it wasn't called, this place would have gone nuts. If it  was still ruined for you then you probably should stop watching

 

I look at officiating 2 ways, and perhaps it's wrong, I won't try to convince you otherwise. 

 

Was it holding? Yes. 

 

But to the other side of the coin, they allowed face guarding, face masks and very physical play the entire game with no call, and I am 100% ok with that.

 

But when you get to where the game is on the line and you make a call like that to decide the game, it sucks.

 

Why not call the entire game by the book if that's your objective? Don't let guys think it's ok to play rough and then make 1 lone call after letting 30 go during the game and do it when it decides the game. It's complete BS.

 

Just be consistent. 

[nucci]

33 minutes ago, Southern_Bills said:

 

I look at officiating 2 ways, and perhaps it's wrong, I won't try to convince you otherwise. 

 

Was it holding? Yes. 

 

But to the other side of the coin, they allowed face guarding, face masks and very physical play the entire game with no call, and I am 100% ok with that.

 

But when you get to where the game is on the line and you make a call like that to decide the game, it sucks.

 

Why not call the entire game by the book if that's your objective? Don't let guys think it's ok to play rough and then make 1 lone call after letting 30 go during the game and do it when it decides the game. It's complete BS.

 

Just be consistent. 

I wasn't agreeing with the call. Just stated a few things

[Southern_Bills]

Just now, nucci said:

I wasn't agreeing with the call. Just stated a few things

 

I got you,  wasn't a personal attack. Just how I see it, which doesn't make me right lol.

[reddogblitz]

7 hours ago, Malazan said:

 

If a penalty *could* be called on every play then there's a massive problem with the rulebook and the rules are so complex that they can't be enforced appropriately and consistently by the officials then you need to make changes.

 

I think the rulebook is intentionally complex in order to give them some wiggle room calling fouls when they need to or not when they don't.

[reddogblitz]

6 hours ago, dave mcbride said:

Curious to know what you think of Chris Simms' take: https://www.nbcsports.com/video/super-bowl-lvii-eagles-james-bradberry-holding-penalty-was-right-call

 

I watched the first 1/2 and then it seemed to be getting into beating a dead horse territory. One thing I would disagree with was when they said this would get called 100% of the time in the regular season.  BS.  I see guys holding way worse than this in every game I watch it seems that aren't called.  

[Thurman#1]

13 hours ago, nucci said:

If you're a football fan that was a great game to watch. If you didn't like it then you should probably move on to another sport

 

 

This.

 

 

[Senth]

6 hours ago, dave mcbride said:

Curious to know what you think of Chris Simms' take: https://www.nbcsports.com/video/super-bowl-lvii-eagles-james-bradberry-holding-penalty-was-right-call

Correct it was a bull#### call.

[Paup 1995MVP]

13 hours ago, nucci said:

I thought Smith's play along sideline should have been a catch. Caught the ball, both feet in bounds . Also Sanders caught the ball and had it long enough. That should have been a fumble. The catch rules are dumb

Ball clearly moved when Smith hit the ground.  In fact, it looked like the ball actually hit the ground.  I thought it was a good call.  The Sanders play is never ruled a catch.  He got wacked as soon as the ball got there.  No football move.  I also thought the ball that was challenged that Goedart caught was not a catch either.  That ball looked to be moving too.  But I was biased for the Chiefs since I had a decent sized bet on them.  LOL  All in all a good Super Bowl to watch.  But the Eagles defense had no answers in the second half.  

[BillsFan2313]

13 hours ago, JerseyBills said:

I would hate if Bif won in that fashion.  I'd take it but it still wouldn't feel right 

 

13 hours ago, StHustle said:

 

Where is the hold? Obviously it was the wind in the dome, blowing out that particular spot of the jersey..

[Paup 1995MVP]

11 hours ago, BADOLBILZ said:

 

 

Your confusion is that you think the NFL is changing.

 

You are changing.

 

Officiating always has been and always will be bad............Goodell wasn't wrong when he said it's never been better...........so your complaint sounds contrived.

 

Maybe you just have less tolerance for it because the rest of the content is no longer directed at entertaining you.........and instead at the demographics that pay the bills and will-be paying the bills in the near future.    That's the circle of life.  

 

You can be mad about it or have fun with it.........last year we had an 18 year old at the party who didn't know who 50 Cent was and thought he was wearing the "50" medallion on his chain because he was 50 years old.     This year we had kids who had no idea who Terry Bradshaw or Paul McCartney were.   

 

It's a kids game played by men in their 20's........if we can't play along they got Doug Flutie selling us Nugenix to help with that.........I'm actually pleasantly surprised when the NFL and advertisers still throw the 60+ crowd a few bones with guest appearances and references in commercials etc..

 

 

 

 

The only commercial worth a flip was the one w Ozzy and Paul Stanley.  I am a big time rocker, and that was very cool.  The halftime music show is a bit much (if you can even call that music)  A 30 minute halftime is stupid.  Imagine if the Super Bowl was just about the football game.  Why would that be so bad?  Its the championship of the football season.  Should be a treat for all the fans who watched every Sunday year after year, crowning the best team.  Why do non football fans need to watch the NFL football championship?  Non baseball fans don't watch the World Series.  Same with non hockey fans not watching the Stanley Cup.  Does the World Cup have a live music act at halftime?  (I am not sure because I don't watch soccer.)  But I can not imagine big time soccer fans wanting to watch some Urban ***** pop singer in the middle of the biggest game of the year.  

[IronyAbounds]

9 hours ago, ChronicAndKnuckles said:

For the older fans…was the officiating this questionable in the 80s/90s? 

Officiating has ALWAYS been questionable - or at least questioned.  Not only are there humans involved, who are prone to mistakes, but fans of losing teams just love to blame losses on officials. If it get raised more now it's really just a factor of more cameras and camera angles that expose the problem calls.

[Paup 1995MVP]

9 hours ago, Thrivefourfive said:

I started watching at 6:30 PST, skipped all the crap. I actually found that the announcers were low key and didn’t get in the way of the game. Although I still can’t help but hear the female ice skater voice from the analyst. Wow FOX. So it seemed like a regular season 1pm game on FOX to me. btw I was done with Super Bowl parties ten years ago, so old man here.

Olson and Burkhardt did a good low key job.  And the other top FOX team of Moose Johnston and Joe Davis is also good.  I wish they all were like that.  One guy I miss who I don't think is on anymore is Chris Spielman.  The guy knows football so well.  And has that dry sense of humor.  

[Paup 1995MVP]

6 hours ago, NewEra said:

Stats also admit that that was the only instance in the entire game in which a DB held receiver.  
 

it was a ticky tac penalty to decide the champion.  A penalty that occurs on almost every pass play.  A penalty that decided the champion.  
 

couldn’t have been a worse ending to the season.  Fitting
 

 

Bradbury pulled his shirt.  He got burned and got caught trying to make up for it.  Is defensive holding only supposed to be called in the first half?  The refs almost always call PI or holding when you grab the receivers jersey.  

5 hours ago, Buffalo Junction said:

The issue is that the refs hadn’t been calling that penalty earlier in the game. Bradberry got away with the same grabby coverage on several similar routes during the game. Changing what is and is not going to be called in the last five minutes of the game incenses the fans and causes controversy. 

Bradberry has always been overrated.  He is nothing special and got caught moving inside too much against a pretty slow receiver in JSS.  All he could do was hold.  Tre White looked like that when he came back this season.  Because it wasn't called early doesn't mean it shouldn't be called at crunch time.  

[L Ron Burgundy]

15 hours ago, Wayne Cubed said:

 

Yea I thought the same. At that point in the game, to determine the outcome, just felt wrong.

 

Thought there was a worse missed hold on Smith-Schuster earlier in the game, when they didn't call that... no reason to call the one to end the game.

 Timing can be unfortunate but if it's a penalty in the first minute it's a penalty in the last.  Anything else gives refs even more subjective power than they already have.  

[NewEra]

1 hour ago, Paup 1995MVP said:

Bradbury pulled his shirt.  He got burned and got caught trying to make up for it.  Is defensive holding only supposed to be called in the first half?  The refs almost always call PI or holding when you grab the receivers jersey.  

Bradberry has always been overrated.  He is nothing special and got caught moving inside too much against a pretty slow receiver in JSS.  All he could do was hold.  Tre White looked like that when he came back this season.  Because it wasn't called early doesn't mean it shouldn't be called at crunch time.  

I’ve watched enough football to know:

-that there are different levels of egregiousness when committing penalties. when there isn’t one defensive holding/dpi penalty thrown all game, they were clearly letting them get away with the less egregious infractions.  That was a less egregious infraction.  

-keeping it consistent is the only thing teams and fans care about.  If they would have kept it consistent, they wouldn’t have thrown a flag.  
 

we’ve seen them NOT throw flags on MUCH more egregious holds.  

[Billzgobowlin]

Not sure why part time has anything to do with seeing and making correct calls...

[BobbyC81]

23 hours ago, Buckets said:

I was afraid that I was the only one.  I don't get reved up about football like I used to.

Most of the regular season games I watched this season were boring.  The Bills started out the season great and exciting but even they became just above mediocre and not as much fun.

[Mr. WEO]

Inevitably, this will be OP on draft day:

 

[BillsPride12]

13 minutes ago, Mr. WEO said:

Inevitably, this will be OP on draft day:

 

Yep...we're all addicted at this point 

[Bobby Hooks]

2 hours ago, BobbyC81 said:

Most of the regular season games I watched this season were boring.  The Bills started out the season great and exciting but even they became just above mediocre and not as much fun.

The Bills started out the season being third in qb pressures and looked excellent. 
 

Once Von went down, we were in the mid 20’s and our dbs were getting picked on. Like you stated we then looked mediocre. 
 

When Von went down, so did our SB bid. 

[T master]

The bottom line in the NFL is money they are going to cater to who ever or what ever will keep the world as we no longer know it to keep coming back us old bastards don't matter as much any more unfortunately every thing including the NFL is & has changed just sometimes it's not for the better .

 

I knew it was changing when comments about changing the half time entertainment from Aerosmith, The Who, & others saying they hoped they would get rid of the old timers the ones that are icons to saying they would rather have the Black Eyed Peas WTH ...

 

That pretty much says it all I bet soon we will see Sam Smith & his partner in this years grammy awards as the half time entertainment just to make a statement but it is what it is .

[cgg716]

12 hours ago, Paup 1995MVP said:

The only commercial worth a flip was the one w Ozzy and Paul Stanley.  I am a big time rocker, and that was very cool.  The halftime music show is a bit much (if you can even call that music)  A 30 minute halftime is stupid.  Imagine if the Super Bowl was just about the football game.  Why would that be so bad?  Its the championship of the football season.  Should be a treat for all the fans who watched every Sunday year after year, crowning the best team.  Why do non football fans need to watch the NFL football championship?  Non baseball fans don't watch the World Series.  Same with non hockey fans not watching the Stanley Cup.  Does the World Cup have a live music act at halftime?  (I am not sure because I don't watch soccer.)  But I can not imagine big time soccer fans wanting to watch some Urban ***** pop singer in the middle of the biggest game of the year.  

You couldn't possibly sound any older in this post. Not everything is made for us and that's ok

[Buffalo Junction]

12 hours ago, Paup 1995MVP said:

Bradbury pulled his shirt.  He got burned and got caught trying to make up for it.  Is defensive holding only supposed to be called in the first half?  The refs almost always call PI or holding when you grab the receivers jersey.  

Bradberry has always been overrated.  He is nothing special and got caught moving inside too much against a pretty slow receiver in JSS.  All he could do was hold.  Tre White looked like that when he came back this season.  Because it wasn't called early doesn't mean it shouldn't be called at crunch time.  

I don’t care who the corner is, or how talented they are. It’s the referees job to set standards for calls on the field of play early and maintain consistency with the standard they set. It’s the players job to adapt to that standard. Inconsistency in officiating leads to controversy more times than not. 

[Call_Of_Ktulu]

Blue Collar workers are what made the NFL what it is today. They will be priced out of everything in about 4 years. If a dozen eggs cost 10$ I can only imagine what it will cost to go to a game.

[Einstein]

On 2/13/2023 at 8:03 AM, nucci said:

Eagles player admitted to holding. 

 

He definitely held a bit, but no more than the players on both defenses had been holding all game.

 

To call that penalty, in that moment, sealing the SB for one team, when you didn't call it all game, seemed odd.

[ExiledInIllinois]

Then they'll take a home game away and place it London... Wait till they prorate your PSL over the other 8 home games and the stray one that will get moved to Detroit in 2028, 2032, and 2036...

 

😆 

 

 

Bend over Bills fan... And wait for the reach around when you lose a playoff bye because they won't call shi... like this:

[In Summary]

The regular season feels about one game too long.

Two teams per conference should have 1st round playoff byes.

Any insertion of politics makes me tune out.

Sterile, serious, PC culture instead of cheerleaders and Spuds McKenzie. The whole NFL and game coverage is just soooo serious.

Insultingly stupid sideline reporter questions and Chris Collinsworth being a fanboy.

Making the run game obsolete.

 

[Meatloaf63]

On 2/13/2023 at 1:13 PM, ChronicAndKnuckles said:

For the older fans…was the officiating this questionable in the 80s/90s? 

Absolutely, but it also seems they have manipulated rules to inject human bias (what is really a catch) so it’s probably worse these days. 4K tv allows a much better picture to see close calls also.

[BillsFanSD]

21 hours ago, cgg716 said:

You couldn't possibly sound any older in this post. Not everything is made for us and that's ok

I think it's okay for football fans to ask that the super bowl be about football.  You might not agree with the specific items that he's raising, but your gatekeeping is not needed.

[cgg716]

15 hours ago, BillsFanSD said:

I think it's okay for football fans to ask that the super bowl be about football.  You might not agree with the specific items that he's raising, but your gatekeeping is not needed.

If that's the complaint he's like 30 years late. It's not gatekeeping to simply mention that a type of entertainment may not be designed for him, or myself for that matter. That's preposterous 

[Bubba Gump]

On 2/13/2023 at 7:55 AM, nucci said:

Neither do I which is why I didn't start watching till 630pm

 

I tuned in at 6:30 and still had to sit through almost 20 mins of garbage. Change the start time to 6:50 if you're gonna be honest. League is a joke and gets worse year by year. But Goodell says the league has never been better, especially the officiating. The dude is delusional. 

[HOUSE]

What you need is a good strong wife.

You can spend your Sunday's  yanking motors and repairing trucks.

[Gregg]

On 2/15/2023 at 1:45 AM, In Summary said:

The regular season feels about one game too long.

Two teams per conference should have 1st round playoff byes.

Any insertion of politics makes me tune out.

Sterile, serious, PC culture instead of cheerleaders and Spuds McKenzie. The whole NFL and game coverage is just soooo serious.

Insultingly stupid sideline reporter questions and Chris Collinsworth being a fanboy.

Making the run game obsolete.

 

 

A 16-game season was perfect. Going to 17 is just dumb and having the conferences alternate between 9 home games and 8 road games every other year. They won't go back to 16 games so increase it to 18 and reduce the preseason. The starters play very little in those games anyway. 18 game season with 2 preseason games is where I see the league going. Agree with you about politics and the PC woke culture BS in football. We get enough of that crap in every other aspect of life. Keep it out of sports. I just want to watch the games and see if my team wins.

[BillsFanSD]

9 hours ago, cgg716 said:

If that's the complaint he's like 30 years late. It's not gatekeeping to simply mention that a type of entertainment may not be designed for him, or myself for that matter. That's preposterous 

He knows that it's not designed for him.  That's his point -- the championship game of his favorite sport isn't designed for fans of that sport, and it should be.  

[cgg716]

1 hour ago, BillsFanSD said:

He knows that it's not designed for him.  That's his point -- the championship game of his favorite sport isn't designed for fans of that sport, and it should be.  

No, it's not designed for HIM, but it is very much designed for fans of the sport, just not HIM

[Big Turk]

Are you singing "Step By Step" and waving your hand in a wide arc over your head as you sing along?

 

 

[streetkings01]

They just showed the hold in Mic’D Up…….whole handful of jersey by the Eagles DB…..whole kung-fu grip of jersey lol 

[Orlando Tim]

I use to watch every game possible until about 2016 and now I miss many of the non Bills playoff games because I hate being invested for 3 hours just to have a blown call change everything. You can't allow so much stuff to happen without calls all game long and then call something so tight in the last 2 minutes. I missed large swaths of the conference championships but every comment I read was about how bad the officials were. The NFL could easily fix it and chooses not to because it benefits somehow.

[Sammy Watkins' Rib]

A lot of my disinterest is the Bills own doing. In fact, it wasn't that long ago that I couldn't be prouder being a Bills fan. The butt whooping we put on the Titans on MNF coming off of the blowout win against the Rams to open the season had me flying higher than I ever remember since I was too young to appreciate the Super Bowl years. But problem was, it was only week 2 and the season was downhill from there. 

 

How in the HE double hockey sticks does a season where we beat the Chiefs in the regular season and only lose 3 games total feel like such a let down? And I'm talking at the conclusion of the regular season and not when the Bills were eliminated from the playoffs?

 

Next season is going to be really interesting. I'm sure i will watch every game but I'm going to be more pessimistic, glass half empty than I have ever been. 

 

The Bills have blown it. The easiest recipe for getting to the Super Bowl is with a good/elite QB on a rookie contract. We blew that opportunity. We had three chances, and not only could we not win the Super Bowl we couldn't even get there. And even worse, we are going backwards two straight years now not reaching the conference championship game.