Refs being candid

[Black_Russian]

The Bills were on the short end of the stick from an officiating stand point last week. However, the league in no way favors certain teams over others, I find this idea to be completely ludicrous. Watching football objectively, games with and without the Bills I see questionable calls but when you add them up, no one team gets favored consistently.

I live in NH (New England fans everywhere) and they believe the NFL and the officials are against them and they get the short end of the stick. Listening to NFL radio where fans of all teams call in, I have also noticed that fans of pretty much every team feel this way, especially in close games. Small market teams think they are not important to the NFL and large market teams think they have a target on them. At the end of the day (end of the season), it all comes out in the wash and if you are the better team you have the better record. The NFL puts a lot of work in to make the officials as consistent as they can, they tweak rules, add plays to instant replay etc. PI and holding will always cause contention among fans because they are judgement calls in real time.

[Billzgobowlin]

The Bills were on the short end of the stick from an officiating stand point last week. However, the league in no way favors certain teams over others, I find this idea to be completely ludicrous. Watching football objectively, games with and without the Bills I see questionable calls but when you add them up, no one team gets favored consistently.

I live in NH (New England fans everywhere) and they believe the NFL and the officials are against them and they get the short end of the stick. Listening to NFL radio where fans of all teams call in, I have also noticed that fans of pretty much every team feel this way, especially in close games. Small market teams think they are not important to the NFL and large market teams think they have a target on them. At the end of the day (end of the season), it all comes out in the wash and if you are the better team you have the better record. The NFL puts a lot of work in to make the officials as consistent as they can, they tweak rules, add plays to instant replay etc. PI and holding will always cause contention among fans because they are judgement calls in real time.

I find that naive. You look at the Steelers Seahawks super bowl and it was obvious the refs weren't holding the teams to the same standard because the league needs a name like Pittsburgh to win. Also the tuck rule? That basically lost the game for the Raiders and has never been seen from again except maybe once. There is obvious bias. Whether or not this game was an example I have no clue but would the replacement refs made those PI calls and if they did would they have gotten more exposure then the current refs?

[Billzgobowlin]

There's no doubt that we shot ourselves in the foot (sorry Plax!) but the penalties allowed the Pats to get a hold of the game and forced us to play differently. Bad calls are bad calls, no matter what minute they're in.

That different play was one bad route run away from winning us the game.

[GreeneBlitz]

I usually laugh at fans who say the refs are biased against us when we play the Pats, but I am now a 100% full faithed believer, that was the most blatant bias officiated game I have ever seen, just pathetic, if it we're the replacement refs, it would have been front sports page around the country.

[AlabamaWCH]

This whole discussion with “refs calls” deciding the outcome of NFL games and team owners NOT running to the COURT HOUSE in a lawsuit highlighting the bias in the calls, tells ME that something is NOT right with this picture. Nobody gets ROBBED in broad daylight and then DON'T or refuse to call the police, UNLESS it was their family member that robbed them or their cousin that did it. So, the fact that the owners say NOTHING with these refs killing your team's chances of legitimately winning much needed to win games is evidence of COLLUSION among the owners. No OBJECTIVE ROBBERY (robbed by an “unknown” stranger in broad daylight) is ever going to be unreported and the victim lived to file a police report. In other words, if there was no collusion, one bad call MIGHT BE ignored. But, when THREE or ELEVEN questionable calls are made and nobody files a LAW SUIT, something is badly wrong.

I bet it has something to do with all of the owners splitting the money EQUALLY among themselves. So, as long as the money is spread EQUALLY, what is a few bad calls that causes my team to lose a game.

[Black_Russian]

I find that naive. You look at the Steelers Seahawks super bowl and it was obvious the refs weren't holding the teams to the same standard because the league needs a name like Pittsburgh to win. Also the tuck rule? That basically lost the game for the Raiders and has never been seen from again except maybe once. There is obvious bias. Whether or not this game was an example I have no clue but would the replacement refs made those PI calls and if they did would they have gotten more exposure then the current refs?

This is the statement that is naive. Why is that they wouldn't make money then? Fans wouldn't watch or something? It would be much worse for the league if they were fixing games than if a team like Seattle won the Super Bowl.

[snapaxp]

I conducted a little research this morning and here are the Bills penalties by week.

Week
1 6
2 5
3 10
4 3
5 5
6 5
7 8
8 bye
9 3
10 14

They had, by far, a ton of penalties last week. Whether or not it was 100% sloppy play or poor calls nobody can really say. The Bills also had the highest total of any team last week, but the Rams/Cowboys both won with 13.

The only truth to this game is that the Bills fumbled the ball to the Pats on the 1 yard line for the second straight game this season. The defense actually played better and gave the Bills a chance to win. It really comes down to blowing two penalties due to injuries in the last drive and a terrible route/throw and not what happened earlier in the game. Complaining now is like saying if Norwood puts it through the uprights the Bills might have won more than one Super Bowl. What ifs don't cut in life.

[MoormanRules8]

I kind of feel like losers complain about officiating..... Whether the calls were bad or not, we had a chance to beat the Pats in their house, and the D as been awful all year... The refs are the least of our problems..

I agree, ref calls aside, with 20 seconds left we were on NE's 15 with a fresh set of downs. We had the chance to win and didn't. Nothing else matters. The calls were bad but they didn't cost the Bills the game. Not when they had the chance to win it in the final seconds and turned the ball over instead.

[buffalo34]

For me, it's just gotten to the point when we play the Patriots that I need to hold off my emotions whenever the Bills make a good play, whether on offense or defense, for like 5 seconds after the play ends, just to make sure no flag has come in. Usually 5 seconds is a good enough window but then it seems like you have those plays where a flag comes in 10 seconds at the end of the play...

[LABILLBACKER]

For me, it's just gotten to the point when we play the Patriots that I need to hold off my emotions whenever the Bills make a good play, whether on offense or defense, for like 5 seconds after the play ends, just to make sure no flag has come in. Usually 5 seconds is a good enough window but then it seems like you have those plays where a flag comes in 10 seconds at the end of the play...

.....I can't wait till Belichick & Brady retire and the Patriots are irrelevant again.....we will always have more penalties than NE when we go head to head....that is a guarantee!

[lonce]

It's been a constant with the refs for many years. Remember the " just give it to them" game against the Pats?

Bad teams do not get the benefit of calls, it's been like this for a long time. During the early 90's we were the benefactors of many pro calls. Why? Because the officials, for some reason seem to be biased to winning teams.

Having the replacement refs was a breath of fresh air. Unfortunately we are back to officials that basically cheat for teams. You have to wonder sometimes if these guys are profiting from this or the NFL is putting officials on the fied who are fans of the team. Remember the Pittsburgh Superbowl game a number of years back?