There needs to be a thread of the officiating today

[pennstate10]

18 minutes ago, thewookie1 said:

Refs were awful and at times seemed to be in the Jags pocket. Rarely can refs cause continuous controversy like they did today. Unlike the last two Chiefs games where they bailed out KC with one specific call; the Bills were jobbed the entire 1st Half and then got beat up some more in the 2nd when the refs finally noticed the Jags were also breaking rules. 
 

Ed Oliver’s 2 penalties were nonexistent/ticky-tac 

 

Knox literally gets tackled on a play which doesn’t get a flag yet Johnson arm fighting down the sideline does.

 

The mysterious offensive pass interference on Davis’s 1st touchdown catch. 
 

Zay Jones batting a ball on the fumble was ify but the one on the inside kick was blatant. No flags.

 

We lost a timeout even though a Jags player was hurt; I’ve never seen to team not get their TO, in those circumstances, back prior to this game.

 

They ruled 2 bobbled balls to be catches for opposite reasons.

 

Poyers hit was ugly but should not have been called due to the situation. The ball was deflected and Poyer didn’t run into the play; he was literally standing and lowered his shoulder to brace for impact. Defenseless receiver calls are supposed to prevent a WR from getting destroyed by a full sprint DB as they hang in the air or the like. Not when they fall into a defensive player.

 

I will say the Allen vs Allen call was absurd as well but 1v10 on calls isn’t exactly a fair or reasonable exchange.

 

 

Couple of points here.

1)  I dont think Bills lost a TO due to injured player.  When there is an injury TO, clock starts when ball is signaled ready for play.  If Bills didnt take the TO, clock would have started when Jags player got off the field and ball signalled ready, and they wouldve used the entire 40 sec before getting the play off.  So no problem with that charged TO.

 

2)  Poyers flag was really soft.  Its a judgment call; I think its usually not called.

 

3)  The Allen v Allen didnt make any difference.  Bills accepted the other "roughness" call on that play.

[John from Riverside]

I thought the game was over officiate it not necessarily for us. They just had to have too much meantime, throwing those ***** flags.
 

But I didn’t know we were in trouble whenever they allowed a jags player to run up behind a bills, player and flat out, hit him in the head with no Foul after the play was over

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

4 hours ago, LabattBlue said:

Yawn.   Bills lose = whining about the officials. 

I didn’t see much complaining about the refs after the jets game 

[Warcodered]

4 hours ago, BBFL said:

Wasn’t the best that’s for sure but there was a substantial amount of times we could have taken the game from the Jags and pulled out a W. 
 

Lackluster for the whole first half from the Offense. Seemed like it kinda switched a little as the game wore on… O finally made an appearance when the D had finally reached its breaking point. Schedule/travel played its part but again, there was ample opportunity to leave there victorious. 

This is true, it did feel pretty one sided to me, but we still had an opportunity take this game back, still pissed me off.

[DapperCam]

I don’t know if one team benefitted more, but the refs made this game borderline unwatchable. No way I would have kept watching if I wasn’t a Bills fan.

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

23 minutes ago, pennstate10 said:

Couple of points here.

1)  I dont think Bills lost a TO due to injured player.  When there is an injury TO, clock starts when ball is signaled ready for play.  If Bills didnt take the TO, clock would have started when Jags player got off the field and ball signalled ready, and they wouldve used the entire 40 sec before getting the play off.  So no problem with that charged TO.

 

2)  Poyers flag was really soft.  Its a judgment call; I think its usually not called.

 

3)  The Allen v Allen didnt make any difference.  Bills accepted the other "roughness" call on that play.

That poyer flag was a huuuge momentum shift.  That would’ve been the best starting field position we had all game by a long shot 

 

as usual the discrepancy in offensive holding swung the game. There was a solid quarter where Lawrence was under siege and his entire offensive line was holding and it was only called against us 

Dawkins got hit with one that the jags were getting away with all day 

 

Edited October 9, 2023 by Generic_Bills_Fan

[Warcodered]

13 minutes ago, DapperCam said:

I don’t know if one team benefitted more, but the refs made this game borderline unwatchable. No way I would have kept watching if I wasn’t a Bills fan.

Well to clear this up we had essentially double the penalty yards.

[Zag20]

2 minutes ago, Generic_Bills_Fan said:

That poyer flag was a huuuge momentum shift.  That would’ve been the best starting field position we had all game by a long shot 

 

 

Yes and I believe after the did punt, we got a holding call on a fair catch, which out as back at the 7 or 8. A holding call on a fair catch.

[CodeMonkey]

5 hours ago, ChronicAndKnuckles said:

The Bills were completely out of their element today and their whole entire roster was decimated w/ injuries including their top 3 CBs on several series. Josh played like crap, but had zero run game to help him out. McD was completely outclassed by a SB winning coach. With that being said…

 

What the hell was that? Bills had 11 flags for 109 yards (Jags 8/56) thrown and seemingly every single time the offense began clicking. Just one after the other like clockwork. I know it’s low hanging fruit to pick on the refs, but today was as bad of an officiated game as I’ve ever seen. 

You can't have a Bills loss without this thread.  Just as 1 rebuttal, what about the roughing he passer in the 4th when Josh tucked the ball and lowered his head into the contact.  Some Bills fans just can't help but think as you do, but it's not one sided.  You have largely elderly men doing the best they can with ridiculous rules. Is it perfect, of course not.  But it's not some kind of conspiracy against the Bills either.

[bmur66]

Either the Bills were playing the refs or they were just playing that bad. Either way it was unwatchable. I found something else to do.

Edited October 9, 2023 by bmur66

[Punching Bag]

5 hours ago, Yobogoya! said:

It is illegal to swat the ball, but that play in real time it’s hard to say he wasn’t just reaching for the ball to grab it and momentum takes it out of bounds when he misses. 
 

Plenty of far more egregious calls to be mad at this game imo. 

 

IMO play should have been replayed rather than automatically given Jaguars player benefit of the doubt since there were 4 Bills players in area.

[Buffalo Barbarian]

They are paid to influence the game.

 

 

[Scott7975]

Josh actually didn't play like crap but whatever.

[1ManRaid]

2 hours ago, Generic_Bills_Fan said:

I didn’t see much complaining about the refs after the jets game 

 

Other than the blatant tripping that handed the Jets the win?  The one the player got fined for but no penalty (the story of our team's life)?

[gtw3]

6 hours ago, BuffaloBillyG said:

I try not to complain about refs too much. We see the plays at a slowed down speed and perfect television angle. They have a split second from one vantage point with bodies flying all over. Reffing a game is not as easy as it seems from the couch. On top of that a very unscientific research tells me that many fans who complain about officiating have very little knowledge about what the rules actually are. 

 

That said, today there were several calls that I wasn't completely sold on. And making it more difficult to know is that the broadcast did a completely horrible job showing replays of what happened. 

 

One thing I can say is that 2nd and 3rd team players are usually more susceptible to commiting fouls due to lack of reps. As are players that are fatigued (like, you know, jetlag). So, some calls I may agree were not the best but the idea that tired backups made a lot of fouls isn't far fetched.

I was going to come in here and chime in with my thoughts but then I read your post and it pretty much summed it all up.    Well said. 

[brianthomas]

i too was frustrated with the flags, with questionable calls that made you wonder if there was something else going on. So i googled the officiating crew during the game & this is what i found on Shawn Smith:

 

The Bills with Josh Allen at quarterback are 8-1 ATS with Shawn Smith, their best record with any referee since his arrival in Buffalo. Additionally, the Bills are 6-0 on the moneyline and ATS in their last six games with Shawn Smith officiating.

 

So this officiating crew had no anti-BILLS bias in their history. Just thought i'd add this bit since i noticed no one else did lol.

 

[Fan in San Diego]

6 hours ago, sdevo said:

Would have like to see a replay of the Oliver call hands to the face on jags first TD drive that extended the drive not sure if it was third down but it’s the third down calls that are just killer I thought the replays in key plays were lacking on the coverage of the game.

The flags came in late after the refs saw the jags needed their help. It’s games like this that make me think the the nfl is scripted. It was in the script for the jags to win today.

it was so unwatchable I turned off the game and went for a drive instead. Too many commercials too. There was football sprinkled in between 5 minutes of commercials. Unwatchable.

Edited October 9, 2023 by Fan in San Diego
Typo.

[Bookie Man]

It was an awful display. Phantom calls left and right.  

[JoPoy88]

8 hours ago, ChronicAndKnuckles said:

The Bills were completely out of their element today and their whole entire roster was decimated w/ injuries including their top 3 CBs on several series. Josh played like crap, but had zero run game to help him out. McD was completely outclassed by a SB winning coach. With that being said…

 

What the hell was that? Bills had 11 flags for 109 yards (Jags 8/56) thrown and seemingly every single time the offense began clicking. Just one after the other like clockwork. I know it’s low hanging fruit to pick on the refs, but today was as bad of an officiated game as I’ve ever seen. 

they’re terrible. They’ve been consistently terrible. They will always be terrible until the league grows a pair and stands up to the refs union. There’s no need for another thread, this is all old news.

 

 

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

56 minutes ago, 1ManRaid said:

 

Other than the blatant tripping that handed the Jets the win?  The one the player got fined for but no penalty (the story of our team's life)?

I don’t even think there was much complaining about that because they were pretty much in fg range regardless 

[ChronicAndKnuckles]

8 hours ago, GoBills808 said:

They didn't effect the outcome but they definitely detracted from the game

 

Just way too many flags

Sorry, you really don’t know that for sure. 

[Dr.Sack]

The thing that bugs me is Taron Johnson is nearly IR’d by a guy cutting he legs on when landing after he jumped to try and bat a pass. Notice when Taron came back in he absolutely threw a Jag into the sideline. 

[BobbyC81]

11 hours ago, Solomon Grundy said:

Rich Eisen commented on how the ref was being seen too much

Exactly.  Professional Sports leagues allow the refs to be too much of an impact.  The NHL refs are the best and the replay team does a good job of getting the calls right.  
 

Nothing’s worse than the MLB and NFL officials taking 10 minutes to look at replays and still get the call wrong.

 

i had noticed an issue that Eisen brought up that’s occurring this season.  A receiver and QB miscommunicate on a route and there’s nobody where the ball’s thrown and they’re calling intentional grounding.  That’s a huge penalty as it’s also loss of down.  I even saw one where the QB was clean in the pocket. The refs should lean the other way.  Brady would just throw the ball into the ground and rarely got called for it.

[DapperCam]

“More flags than an embassy.”

 

https://www.nflpenalties.com/week/5?year=2023
 

So this week the Bills had the most penalty yards, and the most penalty flags thrown against them.

 

Jags vs Bills had the most total penalty flags thrown with 25.

 

Also note that the Bills had zero pre-snap penalties, and I think only one offside. So all of the rest of the penalties were what I would call “judgement calls”.

 

Pretty much a brutal ref performance, and I kind of wonder if they were jet legged just like the players and fans.

Edited October 9, 2023 by DapperCam

[North Buffalo]

14 hours ago, RichRiderBills said:

Here was my summary from 2nd half thread...thought I'd post here:

 

A few calls I'll note: 

 

- 1st TD was no good. Zay's real time TD seemed to show significant bobble and jostle out of bounds that was cut off in all replays. Play did not seem to be reviewed. 

 

- Want to add the hands to the face on the Bills that extended that early drive was also ticky tack. 

 

- The jags 3rd down completion that was clearly an incompletion. No football move was completed, yet the terrible call was reviewed and mind numbingly upheld. A back breaker. 

 

-Kincaid 3rd down catch (2nd or 3rd drive) that was clearly a conversion, but called short. Mind you stunningly not challenged by McD. 

 

- A half a dozen holds on the Bills that were ticky tack. I thought most those Torrence holds late were bogus. Most of these had no replays , and if they did nothing stood out. 

 

-Several PIs that were ticky tack. 

 

- No call on the clear bat out of bounds on the Bills onside kick. It was obvious. It is a rule. 

 

- Just want to say that I think Hyde's defenseless hit PF "could" have been called. But again, a ticky tack call in a crucial down, given the movement on the ball. 

 

Just don't recall a game with such poor officiating. It was too much yellow, and 75% of them did not need to be called. 

 

NFL has an agenda... welp well on to hockey

[Bob Jones]

11 hours ago, pennstate10 said:

Ah, I think the officials did effect the outcome of the game today.

 

Hands to the face on Oliver?  Unneccesary roughness on Poyer? 

 

These were both key 3rd down calls, and both bad calls.  The first led to a 4 pt swing, the second cost the Bills a possession.

 

Look, I dont think there is a vast conspiracy in the NFL fixing games.

 

But I do think there are serious problems with the competence of the officials.

 

Here are a few ideas:

1)  Accountability-  These guys get paid $200K+ for a part time job.  Be accountable.  In many lines of work (GE) the bottom 10% of workers are fired every year.  I watch a lot of college football.  There are hundreds of college officials who could replace these guys and do just as well. 

 

2)  Give them better guidelines.  Tell them if there is any question, dont throw the flag.  In grey areas, dont throw the flag.  No One goes to a game hoping to see lots of flags.

 

3)  Fix some of these grey area rules.  "hands to the face" occurs as often as holding.  Its also called as randomly as holding.  I've never heard of an OL being injured due to "hands to the face".  Just remove the rule. 

 

4)  A defensive flag on 3rd down that bails out the offense is basically a change of possession.  Review these flags, just like you do turnovers.  The review time could serve as a TV time out so the overall length of the game doesnt change. 

Adding to your ideas.

 

- Defensive holding should not be 5 yards and an automatic 1st down….s/b just like offensive holding, 10 yard penalty and no automatic 1st down. How many times have we seen a team facing 3rd down and forever, then a defensive holding is called and bam, first down.

- Pass Interference s/b like college….a 15 yard (or maybe even 10 yard) penalty, and no automatic 1st down. It is never a guarantee that a player is going to catch a ball, even if he is wide open.

- Both offensive and defensive holding definitions and real world applications need to be studied & revised, and refs need to be CONSTANTLY schooled on how to call those penalties fairly. We all know that holding occurs on every play, but it’s only selectively called.

7 hours ago, Generic_Bills_Fan said:

I don’t even think there was much complaining about that because they were pretty much in fg range regardless 

As discussed after that game, the trip happened at the 27, so the PF puts them back at the 42. If the Bills make a stand there, the FG would not be a “gimme” at all. Plus, the fact that it was so blatant, and so out in the open, with many eyes on the runner, and NOT called, just points to incompetence by those refs. It should have been called 100%, even if it happened at the 5 yard line.

[dgrochester55]

Even if someone wants to look past the Bills game yesterday in order to avoid looking like we are blaming the refs for the loss, the Chiefs/Vikings game gave us all a more blatant example to reference.  The non PI call was on the border, but more than what Bradberry got called for in the super bowl.  Too subjective at best, corrupt at worst.  Then there is ignoring the helmet penalty which there is no excuse for.

 

The Bills game is not as blatant, but at the very least you can say that there was over-calling of penalties and that the calling back the first TD to Davis made the refs look incompetent in the way that they handled it.

 

Whether or not the corruption is true, the perception is there more than ever.  This is something the that NFL needs to acknowledge and address. 

[CountDorkula]

7 hours ago, ChronicAndKnuckles said:

Sorry, you really don’t know that for sure. 

And neither do you. 
 

we also just going to ignore the gifts that the Bills got from ticky tack calls?

 

(roughing the passer on JA) 

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

1 hour ago, Bob Jones said:

Adding to your ideas.

 

- Defensive holding should not be 5 yards and an automatic 1st down….s/b just like offensive holding, 10 yard penalty and no automatic 1st down. How many times have we seen a team facing 3rd down and forever, then a defensive holding is called and bam, first down.

- Pass Interference s/b like college….a 15 yard (or maybe even 10 yard) penalty, and no automatic 1st down. It is never a guarantee that a player is going to catch a ball, even if he is wide open.

- Both offensive and defensive holding definitions and real world applications need to be studied & revised, and refs need to be CONSTANTLY schooled on how to call those penalties fairly. We all know that holding occurs on every play, but it’s only selectively called.

As discussed after that game, the trip happened at the 27, so the PF puts them back at the 42. If the Bills make a stand there, the FG would not be a “gimme” at all. Plus, the fact that it was so blatant, and so out in the open, with many eyes on the runner, and NOT called, just points to incompetence by those refs. It should have been called 100%, even if it happened at the 5 yard line.

Oh not a gimmie by any means…I just didn’t see too many complaints about it because we played like absolute garbage so it wasn’t even worth complaining about for most.

 

im not trying to argue that it wasn’t a trip 

 

this game felt different to me…that poyer personal foul completely swung the game imo…our starting field position was mostly terrible and that was pretty much the only time we got a stop on an early set of downs and were set to take over with good field position.  All the offensive holds were only getting called one way too…most of the second half we were blitzing and the jags just held everybody but no calls.  Just not sure what you’re supposed to do in that situation…holds are drive killers and a few of them we got called for were equal to or even less innocuous than what the jags weren’t getting called for 

 

Edited October 9, 2023 by Generic_Bills_Fan

[ChronicAndKnuckles]

12 hours ago, CodeMonkey said:

You can't have a Bills loss without this thread.  Just as 1 rebuttal, what about the roughing he passer in the 4th when Josh tucked the ball and lowered his head into the contact.  Some Bills fans just can't help but think as you do, but it's not one sided.  You have largely elderly men doing the best they can with ridiculous rules. Is it perfect, of course not.  But it's not some kind of conspiracy against the Bills either.

Bills had one iffy call go their way and the Jags had what? A solid 6-7? 

[boco357]

The non stop huddling between officials for easy calls was infuriating. 

[boyst]

17 hours ago, Limeaid said:

Jaguars were constantly hitting in head and post whistile.

the jags hit of allen on bills allen was ticky tacky as can be, tho

4 hours ago, DapperCam said:

“More flags than an embassy.”

 

https://www.nflpenalties.com/week/5?year=2023
 

So this week the Bills had the most penalty yards, and the most penalty flags thrown against them.

 

Jags vs Bills had the most total penalty flags thrown with 25.

 

Also note that the Bills had zero pre-snap penalties, and I think only one offside. So all of the rest of the penalties were what I would call “judgement calls”.

 

Pretty much a brutal ref performance, and I kind of wonder if they were jet legged just like the players and fans.

we have heard a lot about players jet lagged... we need a thread that the refs were jet lagged.

[TheBrownBear]

I wouldn't say we were getting "screwed" particularly, but they did seem overly officious.  My Dad and I were discussing how in the NFL, you could technically throw a flag on every single play. The good refs set parameters early in a game that you're gonna get flagged for clearly egregious and impactful infractions.  These guys just seemed to call anything and everything they came across that could be interpreted as an infraction.

[ChronicAndKnuckles]

4 hours ago, DapperCam said:

“More flags than an embassy.”

 

https://www.nflpenalties.com/week/5?year=2023
 

So this week the Bills had the most penalty yards, and the most penalty flags thrown against them.

 

Jags vs Bills had the most total penalty flags thrown with 25.

 

Also note that the Bills had zero pre-snap penalties, and I think only one offside. So all of the rest of the penalties were what I would call “judgement calls”.

 

Pretty much a brutal ref performance, and I kind of wonder if they were jet legged just like the players and fans.

No presnap penalties makes it even more lopsided. 

[pocoboy]

18 hours ago, ChronicAndKnuckles said:

 

I never said it was a script. It was horrible officiating the same way a player has a bad game. 

 

Steve's gonna be disappointed when he's gonna need transatlantic fare to see his Jaguars play home games.

[pennstate10]

2 hours ago, SUNY_amherst said:

laughable posts. 

 

guys we can't complain about officiating when our only meaningful scoring drive of the second half was aided by an absolutely terrible roughing the passer call. Josh Allen was begging for a flag before he even hit the ground!

Hmm…

 

Question. 
 

How would you respond if a surgeon botched your moms hip surgery, and the nurse says , “oh, don’t worry, it’s not personal.  He botches everyone’s surgery”?
 

Youd want a better surgeon, right?

 

The NFL needs better officials, given clear instructions, and to hold the officials accountable. 
 

As I stated before, I don’t think games are “rigged”. I’m not big on conspiracy theories in general.   I think bad calls even out over the course of a season.  
 

Although the officiating that I see in Chiefs games is making me reconsider.

[Boatdrinks]

I loved the one where they made the Bills score a TD twice for it to count because of phantom OPI . That was great…. Interestingly KC got another extremely beneficial call late Vs MIN when a PI flag in the end zone was picked up due to the ball being tipped. Replay showed it was not tipped , but the Vikes were out of timeouts. It seemingly never ends with KC. 

[BillsFan692]

19 hours ago, ChronicAndKnuckles said:

The Bills were completely out of their element today and their whole entire roster was decimated w/ injuries including their top 3 CBs on several series. Josh played like crap, but had zero run game to help him out. McD was completely outclassed by a SB winning coach. With that being said…

 

What the hell was that? Bills had 11 flags for 109 yards (Jags 8/56) thrown and seemingly every single time the offense began clicking. Just one after the other like clockwork. I know it’s low hanging fruit to pick on the refs, but today was as bad of an officiated game as I’ve ever seen. 

I never like the tale of the tape for Ref calls... just saying jags had 8 for 56 and 10 for 80 (Removing one of the bills flags was DPI for 40 yards) make it seem like overall it wasn't that out of wack, however its WHEN the calls get made that has the most impact. At least THREE times the Jags drives were saved/extended by a wild 3rd and long penalty where our defense had held them. I mean I am pretty sure at least 2 of those drives ended in points for the jags, one a touchdown.

Just now, Boatdrinks said:

I loved the one where they made the Bills score a TD twice for it to count because of phantom OPI . That was great…. Interestingly KC got another extremely beneficial call late Vs MIN when a PI flag in the end zone was picked up due to the ball being tipped. Replay showed it was not tipped , but the Vikes were out of timeouts. It seemingly never ends with KC. 

They ALWAYs get calls though and even more this season.... doesn't seem like there are too many games where I feel like the bills are getting a great benefit from officiating yet there are numerous games where it seems to affect outcomes positively for KC.

[DabillsDaBillsDaBills]

2 minutes ago, SUNY_amherst said:

 

they ask too much of the officials. The rule book is a mile long. They 'fix' questionable rules by adding more rules. It is a broken game. 

 

That doesnt change the fact that yesterday the Bills were on the net positive end of any questionable calls. 

 

Net positive towards the Bills ? What game did you watch ? 

 

Hands to the face penalty on Oliver was a ticky tack call on a 3rd down stop. Literally a 5 point penalty (assuming Jags kick the FG). 

Unnecessary Roughness on Poyer was also a ticky tack call. Also on a 3rd down stop. 

Multiple ticky tack offensive holding calls on the Bills.

Let's not forgot the laughably bad OPI call that took a TD off the board. 

 

How does that balance out one ticky tack roughing call by the Jags? 

 

[pennstate10]

6 minutes ago, SUNY_amherst said:

 

they ask too much of the officials. The rule book is a mile long. They 'fix' questionable rules by adding more rules. It is a broken game. 

 

That doesnt change the fact that yesterday the Bills were on the net positive end of any questionable calls.