The Refs and this “rigged” league

[Clyde Smith]

The Refs got a lot of FaceTime in.

[TheyCallMeAndy]

1 hour ago, Bruffalo said:

Allen is 1-5 when Hochuli is officiating. 

 

The Patriots are 6-0 in that same time frame. 

 

A 16% winrate when a certain referee is running your game seems suspect. Especially when you have a league wide win rate of just about 70%. 

 

Not a single holding call on the Patriots all night. Just throwing that out there.

 

Definitely not the only reason we lost, but a contributing factor when you look at all the ticky tack penalties that easily could have gone uncalled. 

 

 

 

 

This.

 

The only time Bills ever seem to have a ton of yellow, is when Hoch is flexing in the game. 

[Steptide]

Put the fact that the bills lost aside for a min, that is a brutal watch for general football fans. Nobody wants to see that many flags on a Sunday night, nationally televised game. It completely diminishes the product, so I don't know why the league allows some of these refs to nit pick every little thing. We definitely benefited from some calls in the 2nd half, but it was still just way to many flags to be enjoyable 

[TheyCallMeAndy]

1 minute ago, Clyde Smith said:

The Refs got a lot of FaceTime in.

The beefy ones seem to always get a ton of screen time, doing their little muscle man first down poses. 
 

[PromoTheRobot]

1 hour ago, boater said:

The refs did not throw that interception in the Red Zone, so I'm not going to put the loss on them.

 

The penalties were appropriate for both teams. The Bills were sloppy.

 

No, but they made sure to erase every positive Bills play on offense or give a break to the Pats on defense. You can't any like that didn't have an impact.

[Low Positive]

53 minutes ago, oldmanfan said:

I have to say I was throwing my phone around all night after calls, but on replays most of the time they were justified.  The PI on Tre was obvious.  It just seems with Hochuli’s  crew that they want to be visible, they think they are what fans come to see.  Refs should be invisible.

It's not the ones they called against us. They called a tight game for one team. But the other team was holding all night and got zero calls against them. Every time Maye rolled right and made those great plays (and they were great plays), the was aided by clear and obvious holds by the Pats OL. 

 

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but the Pats are owned by the most powerful owner in the league and he was in the house. And for people who say calls don't win or lose the game, imagine a world where they let the slight OPI on Shakir go in the red zone. It would have been 3-1 from the NE 7 instead of 2-13 from the NE 19. That call was followed by the INT that, in retrospect, decided the game.

 

I've been watching the play on the all-22 and yes, Shakir starts blocking before the ball hits Knox's hands. But a) they let that go all the time; and b) the flag comes in LATE, after the play is pretty much over. It's like the ref was looking for a reason to throw a flag. I wish I could embed the video, but you can see it here for the next two days. I think.

 

https://streamable.com/51dywn

[TheyCallMeAndy]

3 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

 

No, but they made sure to erase every positive Bills play on offense or give a break to the Pats on defense. You can't any like that didn't have an impact.

They showed on the broadcast most of those penalties (OPI, several blocking down field, IC, Kincaid's holding, Bernard late hit), and the Bills did commit them. Can't complain about the penalties when the team does in fact flat out commit them. 
 

IIRC there was one holding, maybe on 66, that was iffy. 

[LABILLBACKER]

1 hour ago, Bruffalo said:

Allen is 1-5 when Hochuli is officiating. 

 

The Patriots are 6-0 in that same time frame. 

 

A 16% winrate when a certain referee is running your game seems suspect. Especially when you have a league wide win rate of just about 70%. 

 

Not a single holding call on the Patriots all night. Just throwing that out there.

 

Definitely not the only reason we lost, but a contributing factor when you look at all the ticky tack penalties that easily could have gone uncalled. 

 

 

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5211966/2024/01/19/shawn-hochuli-bills-chiefs-the-pit/?source=athletic_user_shared_article_copylink&smid=url-share-ta

[PonyBoy]

1 hour ago, boater said:

The refs did not throw that interception in the Red Zone, so I'm not going to put the loss on them.

 

The penalties were appropriate for both teams. The Bills were sloppy.

 

But it's hard to win in this league. 

 

About 25 years ago I heard on a radio show that 80% of NFL games were decided by 7 points or less. 

 

The advice was, don't worry about the spread, pick the team you think will win & 80% of the time they will win or cover. 

 

I kept track of all scores for 2 years. Bingo! This caller was right. It was like 80.7 or 80.3 % if I remember correctly.

That's not a coincidence. 

 

We are thinking checkers, NFL is playing chess. 

[BeastMaster]

I'll also say that Hochuli seemed even more arrogant and smug than usual when making the calls...almost as if he wanted you to know what him and his crew were doing

 

They most certainly set the tone early and made it so that it was going to be a competitive fight

[Simon]

16 minutes ago, Low Positive said:

I've been watching the play on the all-22 and yes, Shakir starts blocking before the ball hits Knox's hands. But a) they let that go all the time; and b) the flag comes in LATE, after the play is pretty much over. It's like the ref was looking for a reason to throw a flag. I wish I could embed the video, but you can see it here for the next two days. I think.

 

Thanks for the clip.

That was indeed a gawdawful call.

[Bruffalo]

5 minutes ago, LABILLBACKER said:

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5211966/2024/01/19/shawn-hochuli-bills-chiefs-the-pit/?source=athletic_user_shared_article_copylink&smid=url-share-ta

Thanks for that. I don't have a subscription so I can't see anything besides the headline, but it's good to know that I'm not the only one seeing a trend there!

[Low Positive]

 

Just now, Simon said:

 

Thanks for the clip.

That was indeed a gawdawful call.

It gets better. Here's 6 plays later

[Low Positive]

And not only was he early (see above), when you play it out he's got two hands full of jersey/shoulder pads. That was OPI AND Holding.

[Bruffalo]

Just now, Low Positive said:

 

It gets better. Here's 6 plays later

I couldn't help but yell at the TV during this one. Absolutely ridiculous that Butte didn't get flagged after Shakir did. 

[Best Williams Available]

17 minutes ago, TheyCallMeAndy said:

They showed on the broadcast most of those penalties (OPI, several blocking down field, IC, Kincaid's holding, Bernard late hit), and the Bills did commit them. Can't complain about the penalties when the team does in fact flat out commit them. 
 

IIRC there was one holding, maybe on 66, that was iffy. 

The gripe isn’t the calls themselves but the imbalance of the calls. I.E. slow mo Pats offensive possessions you’ll see that same, just not called.

[Low Positive]

4 minutes ago, Bruffalo said:

I couldn't help but yell at the TV during this one. Absolutely ridiculous that Butte didn't get flagged after Shakir did. 

Bob Kraft is the most powerful owner in the NFL. He's tired of not winning Super Bowls, and he is pulling every string that he can to get his team back to the top of the mountain. Some of that is good player and coaching decisions, but you have to know that he is using every method at his disposal. His history tells us that there is no limit to the lengths that he will go to. 

[Best Williams Available]

I commented during the 1 o’clock games at a friends watching Red Zone that all the crappy teams i.e. underdogs were winning today. When the Eagles fell the writing was on the wall.

[Low Positive]

Just now, Best Williams Available said:

I commented during the 1 o’clock games at a friends watching Red Zone that all the crappy teams i.e. underdogs were winning today. When the Eagles fell the writing was on the wall.

I felt that too. The NFL doesn't want a bunch of meaningless week 18 games again. If they can keep divisions and playoff races close, they get an extra week of playoff ratings. 

[pennstate10]

1 hour ago, CincyBillsFan said:

On the one hand your post is tin foil hat material, but then again a lot of tin foil hat material in all walks of life is coming true now a days.  One thing for sure though is that the NFL wants an AFC East fight between the Bills, and their national audience, and the Pats with their shrinking but still large national audience.  A competitive race between the two benefits the NFL far more then a run away Bills division title.  Beating NE last night would have come close to locking up the AFC East after only 5 weeks - a terrible look by a league that worships at the altar of PARITY.

 

And talking about non calls, in what Universe was that not grounding on Maye in the 1st half?  You know the play and it was amazing that it wasn't called.

 

 

I remember the exact play. 
Receiver was about 15 yds away from Maye, Maye tosses ball at the turf 5 yds away.