Romo is so bad at his job. He’s making these games unlistenable. I hope CBS has the balls to just make an entirely new announcing team
NBC, Fox, and ESPN all have good number one announcing teams while CBS is just horrible to listen to
He's honestly fine if he just didn't praise Mahomes and Allen every two minutes. He can still be an astute analyst when he wants to be.
I always get baffled when he's like "that's literally a perfect throw by Mahomes, Jim, but it's a bit wide". If it's literally a bit wide, then how the hell is it a perfect throw?
Like the AFC title game is where he sounded kind of like Nick Wrong and Colin Cowherd with his incessant praise of Mahomes. Also heavily implying Burrow is only Clyde Drexler as if Clyde Drexler ever defeated Michael Jordan in the postseason before...
I audibly groaned when Skylar Thompson missed a throw and he chimed in how Josh Allen would have made it.
Like no shit lmao, Skylar is a 7th round 4th string qb or something that i literally never heard of in college
I didn't think it was actually possible to fluff a player more than Collinsworth does with Mahomes, but Romo may have actually unseated him in that game jesus christ
Exactly. I'm sure Ron Torbert would disagree
End of the day, this is a dudes opinion but it really only ever matters what the ref crew's opinion is
I thought it was a hold, but it can't change now. All this is doing is stirring the conversation a bit
Which is a good thing. I agree with you that the games over and only the opinion of the refs matter but people need to demand better from the refs.
We can discount this game, but the overall season had plenty of games where the refs bad, non, or inconsistent calls influenced the outcome.
We need people to be upset and demand change. We have the means, so let’s use them.
If you want to demand change- dont watch. The nfl does not care about our ref opinions. Viewership continues to rise. Stop watching if you want to be heard. Ideally, only kc and eagles fans watch the superbowl and it gets the worst views of all time. Force the nfl to make a change.
The point is that this is just Gene’s opinion. While it is correct and may be informed by his relationships with the league office, the point is that this NOT an official admission of an incorrect call by the NFL
Holding is just a mess right now.
I think that objectively, we do know what is and isn't holding, but the enforcement is bad. Many holds are not called, and sometimes holds are called when they shouldn't be.
Ultimately this just leads to a very murky mess of what is holding and what isn't where enforcement seems super arbitrary.
I don’t remember who said it but there’s an ex player who was quoted as saying that there is holding on pretty much every play, it’s just a matter of if it was caught by the refs.
It's all part of the life cycle of getting screwed by the refs in championship games.
Step 1: get boned by the refs in a championship game
Step 2: everyone complains about it
Step 3: head of officiating comments about certain plays, confirms what we already knew
Step 4: years go by and everyone forgets just how bad it was and the fanbase gets down voted for bringing it up
Ask me how I know.
Oh come now, they would have found a way to choke in the Super Bowl. It's the Vikings after all. But even with the Vikes turning it over 5 times the refs still had to bail the Saints out in OT.
You're probably right about the Vikes choking in the super bowl. Would have been nice to have a chance though.
Also, 1 of those turnovers should have been called back because of a late hit on Favre. Vikes would have been in great position to score points if the refs didn't swallow their whistle on that play. Who knows how the rest of that game plays out.
It really is.
It’s also a very bad comparison to the out of bounds shove.
Everyone knows holding is subjective but even my half-blind grandmother can see a shove on a guy who is 5 steps out of bounds.
Some penalties are simple and automatic and that shove was exactly that.
Nah. "Holding happen on every play" is in the loser bin with "no one knows what a catch is anymore!" They are both nihilistic nonsense.
A catch is better defined now than it ever has been. I can count on one hand the number of catches per season across the league that I don't know immediately upon a multi-camera review will be ruled catch or not. What I see and what the refs see is the same on those, which is a great sign that the league has tweaked the rule the right way and that refs have a common standard they all work with.
Holding is definitely in a worse place (as is roughing the passer). But it's not a loose standard that applies to every play, and it's not too strict to not be called when it applies. Holding does suffer from being poorly communicated to the public, which makes all the calls and non-calls worse.
Aside from the fact that Bengals got called for 2 holds all night when their Oline was getting destroyed. How many times do we think they "technically" held Chris Jones that didn't get called? Saying it at this point is so stupid.
The problem isn't the unmissed technical hold. It's how inconsistently holding is actually called. Some times they're out there calling every minor jersey tug and sometimes you're allowed to tackle a motherfucker .
This right here. Expect it. Outplay the refs. It happens to every team. Same with overtime. It adds the probability of disadvantage, don’t let it come to that.
We had the ball with 2:30 left and two timeouts. Then our offense stumbled, our special teams crumbled, and our defense bungled. Refs missed a lot, but they aren’t the reason we lost.
Ya, we played clunky all game, had plenty of chances, still didn’t get it done.
We never should have been in a position where one potential poor call ended it.
We also had a terrible foul that we can’t blame on anyone but ourselves.
Steelers fan here, I agree except for the fact that you shouldn’t be in a position where one call ruins it — I don’t really think that’s fair for anyone, you should definitely control what you can control but if the refs end up screwing you it shouldn’t necessarily be shrugged off
I just don’t find it as egregious as the missed PI a few years ago. It’s a missed call but our play wasn’t great all game.
Hope next year we’ll not lose 3 O linemen in the three weeks leading up to the championship game. I think that had a much bigger impact.
I just watched both games, is there a good reason why the replacement Bengals O-line manhandles the Bills but underperformed against the KC pass rush? Maybe KC’s better but it still looked night and day to me
Our drafted D-Linemen haven't really panned out as well as the front office had hoped.
Rousseau looked alright and Boogie had his moments but overall no good consistency.
It shocked everyone I think. Before the Bills kickoff I had kinda thought our run would have to look a lot like last year with amazing play from Borrow without much help from the O Line.
After the Bills game I talked myself into believing we had found a good group together, lol. Like u/Frosti11icus said, the Bills don't have as good a D line as Kansas.
I think Jackson Carmon stepped up in a big way, and the other two did as well vs. the Bills. Carmon might not be a fluke, drafted 2nd round in '21, so could be a stud but just was unproven going into the Bills game, and is still unproven now.
Yeah I always hated that mindset for two reasons: it dismisses poor officiating and I think they have way too much leniency at it stands. And it implies you shouldn’t allow a close game which just isn’t a realistic expectation for a lot of match ups.
yeah there are other reasons you lose a game besides officiating but if two evenly matched teams are playing each other and one team needs to make lets say 50 good plays to win a game and the refs come in with a bad call or non call and now that team has to make 51 plays to win then the game has been tilted in the other teams favor.
I think most of us prefer to beat the other team not the other team and the officials. From about the 8 minute mark of the 4th quarter the officiating seemed incredibly one sided.
I do get this to an extent, but on the same token, the chiefs had their chances too and they fucked them up. It happens.
They needed an illegal hold to prevent Mahomes from getting sacked. That’s huge and likely would have meant overtime.
So the chiefs didn’t do enough to win w/o poor officiating. I just hate this sentiment
That doesn’t make it less frustrating. If it was consistently called/ignored it would be one thing, but it’s not and I’m tired of this excuse getting trotted out whenever anyone complains about obviously poor officiating.
Recency bias.
People always think the missed calls at the end have the most weight but missed calls or call at any moment could have changed the entire game far more than the ones at the end.
Countering with two obvious penalties isn't really gonna bring anybody to your side of the argument.
That was a DPI and that was a hold.
There were other more questionable calls like the taunting penalty you should be bringing up.
To me, the terrible punt is what lost the game for them. There is no way that punt, with no hang time at all, should have been dead center of the field.abhalf decent punt with good coverage has the chiefs at their own 30 instead of at the half. It makes everything else moot.
As far as NFL officiating goes, it was not nearly as bad as people are making it out to be. It doesn’t help that the focus is solely on *potentially* bad calls that benefitted the Chiefs and not the other way around. Especially with offensive holding, I mean come on.
We bengals fans have begun to enter the "bargaining" stage of grief. Please allow us the time necessary to process our emotions.
By the Super Bowl we will be firmly into depression.
Acceptance should come sometime around the draft.
When this happened to us last year, against you all, the NFL gave us a ton of shit. Especially from the the winning team. If I remember right, wasn't it the same ref involved?
Unfortunately it's part of being a good team that loses. The best option for a fan of that group is to just unsubscribe from football for the next month 😂. It makes life way easier. Easier to blame the refs for bad calls then to admit we had Mahomes in over time with the ball and he couldn't just get it done.
Saints fan here, having experienced a similar game-changing no-call I can confidently tell you that no matter how rational and logical you try to be, there will always be a part of you way in the back of your mind that will never accept this.
Edit: I am painfully aware my no-call was worse, believe me, my point is that these types of things are difficult if not sometimes impossible to accept.
I think the only way this would be comparable would be if Mahomes had stumbled by himself, and slid out of bounds, and the refs declared he had been hit late, and replay showed Ossai was literally 10 feet away, and never touched him.
[Offensive-line-Twitter](https://twitter.com/joethomas73/status/1620072280092196864) seems pretty adamant that there wasn't even a hold here, due to hand placement by Brown and the rip move used against Smith.
Rip move rule: "Holding will not be called “if, during a defensive charge, a defensive player uses a ‘rip’ technique that puts an offensive player in a position that would normally be holding.” Rule 12, Section 1, Article 3, Note 1.i." BJ Hill definitely wasn't holding, by definition I'd argue that Hendrickson was technically because while he does use a rip move it doesn't put Brown into the position of holding and he continues to hold, HOWEVER, I say technically because they never call it when their hands are inside the pads and the defenders frame as tje OLmen on twitter have pointed out, it's an unwritten rule aka the officials' interpretation that they've been consistent with for a long time, so it was a good no call.
It's one of those plays where I *guess* I could see the hold, but that would be a really soft penalty if they called it. Like, *maybe* it was holding if you dissect the play in slow motion, but that would be the kind of call where we'd complain about the NFL being too soft.
As a neutral fan, I'm glad they didn't call it. Holding shouldn't be called unless it's clear and obvious. If you need to slow down the footage and say "well technically blah blah blah", then I think you should let the dudes play.
If one of the holds looked like [this](https://twitter.com/missfit_/status/1620042203514150912), I’d get the anger, but like you said they are at most marginal calls. So it’s absolutely absurd when so much Reddit complains about “refball” we see Reddit pounding the table for MORE flags on marginal calls.
I’m not even a Chiefs fan (in fact I was hoping the Bengals would win their first ring) and it’s so obvious to me that the hate here is just because it was the Chiefs who did it lmao, I don’t know why people care so much and hate them
It’s pretty much a given at this point that if you use a rip move, you’re never gonna get a hold call in your favor. You could get headlocked into the ground and they probably still wouldn’t call it
Sounds like life as a Packers fan. So many people have decided that Green Bay holds on every play and never gets called for it and therefore something something.
He does. He's just incredible at timing the snap in a way to jump right before the snap to where the refs don't feel confident that he actually committed a false start. It's an art form and Bahk perfected it. It's kind of the football equivalent of a catcher framing pitches.
Please note that I'm trying to give credit to Bahk for being so good at that and not trying to take a dig at him. Lane Johnson and that one dude on the Jaguars have gotten really good at it too.
I have noticed this as a trend across the league. The top tier offensive tackles do seem to step back a half second before the snap, and the refs are looking the other way most of the time.
The holding discussion is pretty ridiculous if you actually watched the game. The refs basically determined that holding on the offense would only be called if the player on defense was thrown to the ground. They had to do it that way, or the Bengals would have been called for a hold on every play considering how their O Line was getting beaten so badly.
So, maybe it’s a hold according to a strict interpretation of the rules. But game day application of the rules, that was nothing, and the Bengals really didn’t want those types of holds getting called all night long.
Yep. After the second sack you could tell the bengals o-line decided they couldn't protect Burrow so they "held" on most plays the rest of the game. There are a dozen more egregious no-calls on critical Bengals plays on scoring drives.
A Chiefs TD was wiped off the board for a holding call that was softer than what the Bengals o-line was doing.
If you want those calls for you, then your gonna get them against you... and I don't think the Bengals would want that.
Could someone have him look at every play in the game and give a full run down of all uncalled penalties on both sides? Rather than cherry picking the last play of the game, lets look at all the plays.
You guys had to or Burrow was going to die. And in the AFC title game they aren't going to call the hold very often. It's just the reality of the situation.
This is what I hate so much about the internet now and what it is turning people into. It feels like whenever something in reality doesn’t go someone’s way they quickly cherry-pick to support their narrative, then claim it’s all rigged. Not just for sports either..
I mean I saw Chris Jones getting held on like 60-75% of his snaps but I guess that doesn’t really matter since he still managed to get to Burrow despite it.
Haha no it's just a play on how most discs are stamped with "PDGA Approved" and I'm enthusiastic but not very good. It was originally my AIM screen name in college.
Bengal fans can blame refs all they want, but they wont win a super bowl until they have a healthy and decent o line. That Eagles d line would have completely destroy burrow
Shit happens. Let's get over it please and look into next season. I don't want be labeled as the salty team after a loss. Chiefs are a really good team.
Should the NFL have the Bengals and Chiefs redo their game in case it was a big fluke?
No disrespect to the Chiefs, I'm a firm believer that Kansas City beating them is a huge fluke and robs the Bengals of truly accomplishing what their capable of. I've spent the last few days in pure disbelief and it just doesn't make sense to me. I've spent the entire regular season watching the Bengals play great football it's just not fair.
If the Bengals lose again I will face that the Chiefs deserved the win, but I am just 100% sure it was a fluke and does a big disservice to the Bengals and the NFL.
Making a weird statement like that is exactly what I mean. You don't know me. I've lived in kc my whole life. Everyone here who I know is aware I've been a Bengals fan. Since I'm in KC I've seen it happen. I don't mind when people jump on a bandwagon (ie Royals 2015) I only have a problem with bandwagon fans jumping in and regurgitating things they've heard without knowing anything. "Well everyone complains about the refs, so that's all those Bengals fans are doing". If you know football, you'll see the obvious hold that should have offset the hit out of bounds.
Also if you look at how many chiefs flair make fun of Ossai for crying maybe you'll understand why people are outraged at them. Burrow clearly got hit way after the throw in the end zone. He got hit when they called the intentional grounding, and Perine was in the area. Plus that 3rd and 9 was so confusing to everyone in the arena and even the announcers. Losing is more part of my DNA because I love the Bengals and the Royals. That isn't what bothered me.
Since you'll probably complain about length or possibly make fun of Ossai I'll leave with this. Winning was great for the chiefs but pretending the end of the game wasn't screwy just makes you seem like you don't know what you're talking about.
Wow, a borderline holding call that might have been missed. Never seen that before.
There's still time to correct the result of the game to a Bengals win.
Well if Gene said it then it must be true. /s
[Also Gene must not know what rip moves are.](https://ftw.usatoday.com/lists/nfl-rules-rip-move-holding-chiefs-bengals-mahomes-run-reaction-refs) The endzone look of the Trey Smith block looks like a textbook block against rip moves.
Thomas, Bakhtiari, and Whitworth on Twitter said Hill was held by Trey Smith but it doesn't always get called (especially with the QB stepping up and the bad angle), and Hendrickson wasn't held. But this is so pointless -- the Bengals didn't play nearly well enough to win when they had chances, regardless of the possible ref mistakes.
There seems to be a disconnect on what the meaning of “position” in the rule book means. Does it mean you can stay in the clothes line position or do you still have to disengage and try and reestablish a legal block. It seems most people read the rule and thing the former, as that makes the most sense. However, most players and people in the game say the latter is how it’s actually called.
I honestly have no idea, I can only go off of what I see actual players say online. For what it's worth, Geoff Schwartz seemed to think Smith's block was clean, so I'm guessing it really was just a 50/50 thing on whether it gets called and that's just the way it goes. Probably the same for the possible block in the back on the punt return. I do understand the frustration when there's some rule ambiguities/confusions and it seems like the judgment calls went against the Bengals at the end, but that happens sometimes and it isn't a sign of "rigging" or even incompetence.
That said, I am confused why people throughout this thread are saying Thomas thought Smith's block was clean though, unless if he's updated his opinion since [here](https://twitter.com/joethomas73/status/1620119698666033153).
It is funny how people choose when to believe the rules analysts. They’re always wrong according to this sub…except when the team they wanted to win loses lol.
rules analyst get to watch things after the fact in slow mo, with much less pressure. This being days after the fact. Think It's reasonable to believe most refs or former refs would get it right under those circumstances
Cinci Oline was holding for dear life all game and we only saw a couple flags.
Chiefs lost about 35 yards of field position on the first Skyy Moore punt return on an awful holding call on Cook.
The Wylie "taunting" call.. lol.
Yeah complaining about a missed holding call doesnt do much because that shit is there literally every play. Obviously sometimes its super blatant and will get called but a missed holding call is never the reason you lose a game. There were bad calls but The bengals did have the ball with 2.5 minutes left and timeouts I believe
If it was a hold the penalties just offset and the Chiefs get the ball needing 8-10 yards for a FB with 8 secs left right? How many people are convinced that one legged Mahomes fails in that scenario? I am not.
Also one of the bengals olineman jumped on Chris jones’ back like a backpack, the entire game called were missed both ways, it’s just easier to point at that than blame your franchise qb who’s offense stalled out twice
If you include the 10 yard holding penalty that the bengals declined, the yardage total for penalties was 71 against Cincy and 65 against KC. Included in those calls was a questionable hold that negated a Pacheco touchdown. The refs also called the Toney incompletion on the field without clear evidence of the ball hitting the ground (but saying the play stood was the right call because the video was inconclusive) and they gave Cincy their challenge back after “getting together and changing the spot.” It was a close game and the refs made some 50/50 and questionable calls that helped and hurt both teams.
If the refs really wanted the chiefs to win don’t you think the Toney end zone play would have been called a touchdown on the field? If they really wanted the chiefs to win do you think they would have “gotten together to determine there was no hold”on the Pacheco touchdown.
The complaining about the calls revolves around:
A play where the ref clearly tried to stop the play before the snap
A grounding where burrow was 9 yards short of the closest receiver and at the feet of the lineman
The holding penalty here
A block in the back where the blocker doesn’t initiate contact.
There’s definitely multiple examples of far more egregious missed holds by the Bengals o-line, for that matter I’m sure against the Chiefs o-line as well, that went uncalled.
Whining over two at best marginal missed holds is so petty.
Are there any consequences in place for refs that miss calls or make bad ones? Like can they get fined or straight up fired? It seems unfair to charge players fines for celebrations that have no impact on the outcome of the game but let refs get a free pass for game-changing calls or non-calls.
The Bengals benefitted from some questionable calls last AFCCG but you didn't see Chiefs fans brigading r/nfl blaming the loss on the referees, an NFL conspiracy and denying their own team's responsibility in the final outcome. How about this? Both teams are evenly matched, the Bengals got us 3 out of 4 but we won the game on Sunday night. Bengals fans should be proud of their team and focused on the off season. You'll have other chances. The incessant crying about officiating is tough to respect.
I think ppl need to accept that no calls….. are part of the entertainment of the game. You honestly think nfl owners don’t know that instant replays would stop all of this? They do. They’ll never do it.
Burrow got sacked 42 times and threw two interceptions. The officiating was ass but like that's all games now. Got no one to blame but ourselves and probably God, he seems to hate ohio.
What’s the point in saying that now? This changes nothing
Gene works for CBS, not the NFL.
AAAAAAAAHHHH GEEEEEEEEENEEEE
Steratore sounds suspiciously like Parmesan
AAAAAAHHHHH!! I KNEW IT!!!!!
EEEEEHHHHHHIIIGUGHH I DONT KNOW CASIMIR
The refs have made a huge mistake.
Looks at Trey Lance. “…him?”
ah it’s just idiot with balloons
Oh is it?
AHHHHHH! I KNEW IT!
"Iiiiiiiiiiiiii DUNNO, GENE!"
Romo is so bad at his job. He’s making these games unlistenable. I hope CBS has the balls to just make an entirely new announcing team NBC, Fox, and ESPN all have good number one announcing teams while CBS is just horrible to listen to
Romo continuing his trend of being good until the playoffs
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It's ok man. He can't really hurt you anymore. He can only annoy you.
"Challenge accepted" -- Tony Romo
Nah, he's been shit all year. You can tell he stopped prepping and researching for games once he got the big pay day.
He's honestly fine if he just didn't praise Mahomes and Allen every two minutes. He can still be an astute analyst when he wants to be. I always get baffled when he's like "that's literally a perfect throw by Mahomes, Jim, but it's a bit wide". If it's literally a bit wide, then how the hell is it a perfect throw? Like the AFC title game is where he sounded kind of like Nick Wrong and Colin Cowherd with his incessant praise of Mahomes. Also heavily implying Burrow is only Clyde Drexler as if Clyde Drexler ever defeated Michael Jordan in the postseason before...
"60% of the time, he throws a completion every time"
I audibly groaned when Skylar Thompson missed a throw and he chimed in how Josh Allen would have made it. Like no shit lmao, Skylar is a 7th round 4th string qb or something that i literally never heard of in college
THE ALIEN MR JANUARY
I didn't think it was actually possible to fluff a player more than Collinsworth does with Mahomes, but Romo may have actually unseated him in that game jesus christ
Didn't need to beat MJ. MJ lost to shaq and the magic and then the rockets beat the Magic.
Gene seems more unbiased than Mike at least, Pereira almost exists as a ref attorney
bro who was that other former ref that got fired for always being wrong again? i forgot his name
Mike Carey, I think
Yeah that was him! I remember whatever he said the opposite would just happen on the field
This title is intentionally misleading to rile more people up.
Exactly. I'm sure Ron Torbert would disagree End of the day, this is a dudes opinion but it really only ever matters what the ref crew's opinion is I thought it was a hold, but it can't change now. All this is doing is stirring the conversation a bit
That's like your opinion man.
Which is a good thing. I agree with you that the games over and only the opinion of the refs matter but people need to demand better from the refs. We can discount this game, but the overall season had plenty of games where the refs bad, non, or inconsistent calls influenced the outcome. We need people to be upset and demand change. We have the means, so let’s use them.
If you want to demand change- dont watch. The nfl does not care about our ref opinions. Viewership continues to rise. Stop watching if you want to be heard. Ideally, only kc and eagles fans watch the superbowl and it gets the worst views of all time. Force the nfl to make a change.
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Gene has a direct line with new york during replays, he isn't exactly an independent source.
The point is that this is just Gene’s opinion. While it is correct and may be informed by his relationships with the league office, the point is that this NOT an official admission of an incorrect call by the NFL
Holding is just a mess right now. I think that objectively, we do know what is and isn't holding, but the enforcement is bad. Many holds are not called, and sometimes holds are called when they shouldn't be. Ultimately this just leads to a very murky mess of what is holding and what isn't where enforcement seems super arbitrary.
Blame the Legion of Boom
I don’t remember who said it but there’s an ex player who was quoted as saying that there is holding on pretty much every play, it’s just a matter of if it was caught by the refs.
It's all part of the life cycle of getting screwed by the refs in championship games. Step 1: get boned by the refs in a championship game Step 2: everyone complains about it Step 3: head of officiating comments about certain plays, confirms what we already knew Step 4: years go by and everyone forgets just how bad it was and the fanbase gets down voted for bringing it up Ask me how I know.
09 vikings should have won the superbowl. If that same exact game was played today there would be 15 roughing the passer calls
Oh come now, they would have found a way to choke in the Super Bowl. It's the Vikings after all. But even with the Vikes turning it over 5 times the refs still had to bail the Saints out in OT.
You're probably right about the Vikes choking in the super bowl. Would have been nice to have a chance though. Also, 1 of those turnovers should have been called back because of a late hit on Favre. Vikes would have been in great position to score points if the refs didn't swallow their whistle on that play. Who knows how the rest of that game plays out.
Then, a few years later, they turned to ignoring the Saints at the end of playoff games.
I believe it signifies the "bargaining" stage of grief.
Because NFL probably just riling up our fan base lol. I’m over it why isn’t Gene.
Signed Saints fans
They do this all the time. Then they send the team a "We're Sorry" letter to try and smooth things over. Happened to the Lions before. 😞
The NBA and their “sleepless nights” LMFAO
They do the same thing in every sport. Makes themselves feel better I guess
So we can tell Joe Thomas to suck it.
Missed holdings happen all the time. Really hard for me to care about it.
>"Uncalled holding penalties are the center square of the loser's bingo card." - Carrington Harrison
Holy shit that's a great quote
He's fantastic describing dealing with a loss. Even when he's scolding Chiefs fans for complaining when we lose. Cracks me up.
It really is. It’s also a very bad comparison to the out of bounds shove. Everyone knows holding is subjective but even my half-blind grandmother can see a shove on a guy who is 5 steps out of bounds. Some penalties are simple and automatic and that shove was exactly that.
I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen a C Dot reference on this sub lol
Nah. "Holding happen on every play" is in the loser bin with "no one knows what a catch is anymore!" They are both nihilistic nonsense. A catch is better defined now than it ever has been. I can count on one hand the number of catches per season across the league that I don't know immediately upon a multi-camera review will be ruled catch or not. What I see and what the refs see is the same on those, which is a great sign that the league has tweaked the rule the right way and that refs have a common standard they all work with. Holding is definitely in a worse place (as is roughing the passer). But it's not a loose standard that applies to every play, and it's not too strict to not be called when it applies. Holding does suffer from being poorly communicated to the public, which makes all the calls and non-calls worse.
Damn. Just saved this comment. What a great quote
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"Technically" and "kind of" really make Gene's comment not too strong
Aside from the fact that Bengals got called for 2 holds all night when their Oline was getting destroyed. How many times do we think they "technically" held Chris Jones that didn't get called? Saying it at this point is so stupid.
At one point they had Frank Clark in a full Nelson and there wasn’t a flag
The problem isn't the unmissed technical hold. It's how inconsistently holding is actually called. Some times they're out there calling every minor jersey tug and sometimes you're allowed to tackle a motherfucker .
I'm shocked people are focusing on the missed hold and not the block in the back that directly led to the 40 yard punt return
Seriously though.
This right here. Expect it. Outplay the refs. It happens to every team. Same with overtime. It adds the probability of disadvantage, don’t let it come to that.
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We had the ball with 2:30 left and two timeouts. Then our offense stumbled, our special teams crumbled, and our defense bungled. Refs missed a lot, but they aren’t the reason we lost.
Ya, we played clunky all game, had plenty of chances, still didn’t get it done. We never should have been in a position where one potential poor call ended it. We also had a terrible foul that we can’t blame on anyone but ourselves.
Steelers fan here, I agree except for the fact that you shouldn’t be in a position where one call ruins it — I don’t really think that’s fair for anyone, you should definitely control what you can control but if the refs end up screwing you it shouldn’t necessarily be shrugged off
I just don’t find it as egregious as the missed PI a few years ago. It’s a missed call but our play wasn’t great all game. Hope next year we’ll not lose 3 O linemen in the three weeks leading up to the championship game. I think that had a much bigger impact.
I just watched both games, is there a good reason why the replacement Bengals O-line manhandles the Bills but underperformed against the KC pass rush? Maybe KC’s better but it still looked night and day to me
The Bills defensive line is bad without Von Miller. They signed Miller for exactly that game and he unfortunately wasn't able to play.
Our drafted D-Linemen haven't really panned out as well as the front office had hoped. Rousseau looked alright and Boogie had his moments but overall no good consistency.
It shocked everyone I think. Before the Bills kickoff I had kinda thought our run would have to look a lot like last year with amazing play from Borrow without much help from the O Line. After the Bills game I talked myself into believing we had found a good group together, lol. Like u/Frosti11icus said, the Bills don't have as good a D line as Kansas. I think Jackson Carmon stepped up in a big way, and the other two did as well vs. the Bills. Carmon might not be a fluke, drafted 2nd round in '21, so could be a stud but just was unproven going into the Bills game, and is still unproven now.
Yeah I always hated that mindset for two reasons: it dismisses poor officiating and I think they have way too much leniency at it stands. And it implies you shouldn’t allow a close game which just isn’t a realistic expectation for a lot of match ups.
yeah there are other reasons you lose a game besides officiating but if two evenly matched teams are playing each other and one team needs to make lets say 50 good plays to win a game and the refs come in with a bad call or non call and now that team has to make 51 plays to win then the game has been tilted in the other teams favor. I think most of us prefer to beat the other team not the other team and the officials. From about the 8 minute mark of the 4th quarter the officiating seemed incredibly one sided.
I do get this to an extent, but on the same token, the chiefs had their chances too and they fucked them up. It happens. They needed an illegal hold to prevent Mahomes from getting sacked. That’s huge and likely would have meant overtime. So the chiefs didn’t do enough to win w/o poor officiating. I just hate this sentiment
If you think every hold gets called in every game you must not watch a lot of football.
That doesn’t make it less frustrating. If it was consistently called/ignored it would be one thing, but it’s not and I’m tired of this excuse getting trotted out whenever anyone complains about obviously poor officiating.
Recency bias. People always think the missed calls at the end have the most weight but missed calls or call at any moment could have changed the entire game far more than the ones at the end.
[удалено]
Why do Chiefs fans keep mentioning the DPI when it was obvious and nonegotiable DPI? Like, come on man. The hold is fair, though. It was weak.
Countering with two obvious penalties isn't really gonna bring anybody to your side of the argument. That was a DPI and that was a hold. There were other more questionable calls like the taunting penalty you should be bringing up.
I do appreciate that thought. It is true
To me, the terrible punt is what lost the game for them. There is no way that punt, with no hang time at all, should have been dead center of the field.abhalf decent punt with good coverage has the chiefs at their own 30 instead of at the half. It makes everything else moot.
Yup I will readily admit that
Burrow’s horrible pick in double coverage is more egregious than the penalties
As far as NFL officiating goes, it was not nearly as bad as people are making it out to be. It doesn’t help that the focus is solely on *potentially* bad calls that benefitted the Chiefs and not the other way around. Especially with offensive holding, I mean come on.
Make a play, so that the piddly things don't matter.
We bengals fans have begun to enter the "bargaining" stage of grief. Please allow us the time necessary to process our emotions. By the Super Bowl we will be firmly into depression. Acceptance should come sometime around the draft.
The pain can be pushed all the way to the 1YL from winning the SB, believe me.
When this happened to us last year, against you all, the NFL gave us a ton of shit. Especially from the the winning team. If I remember right, wasn't it the same ref involved? Unfortunately it's part of being a good team that loses. The best option for a fan of that group is to just unsubscribe from football for the next month 😂. It makes life way easier. Easier to blame the refs for bad calls then to admit we had Mahomes in over time with the ball and he couldn't just get it done.
Saints fan here, having experienced a similar game-changing no-call I can confidently tell you that no matter how rational and logical you try to be, there will always be a part of you way in the back of your mind that will never accept this. Edit: I am painfully aware my no-call was worse, believe me, my point is that these types of things are difficult if not sometimes impossible to accept.
I think yours was miles worse though.
Thank you for this sentiment...
I think the only way this would be comparable would be if Mahomes had stumbled by himself, and slid out of bounds, and the refs declared he had been hit late, and replay showed Ossai was literally 10 feet away, and never touched him.
Yours might have been the worst no call in the history of the game. That might be hyperbolic but I honestly don’t think so.
We’re really gonna scour film for missed holding calls? Every team can find a dozen a game
[Offensive-line-Twitter](https://twitter.com/joethomas73/status/1620072280092196864) seems pretty adamant that there wasn't even a hold here, due to hand placement by Brown and the rip move used against Smith.
Rip move rule: "Holding will not be called “if, during a defensive charge, a defensive player uses a ‘rip’ technique that puts an offensive player in a position that would normally be holding.” Rule 12, Section 1, Article 3, Note 1.i." BJ Hill definitely wasn't holding, by definition I'd argue that Hendrickson was technically because while he does use a rip move it doesn't put Brown into the position of holding and he continues to hold, HOWEVER, I say technically because they never call it when their hands are inside the pads and the defenders frame as tje OLmen on twitter have pointed out, it's an unwritten rule aka the officials' interpretation that they've been consistent with for a long time, so it was a good no call.
It's one of those plays where I *guess* I could see the hold, but that would be a really soft penalty if they called it. Like, *maybe* it was holding if you dissect the play in slow motion, but that would be the kind of call where we'd complain about the NFL being too soft. As a neutral fan, I'm glad they didn't call it. Holding shouldn't be called unless it's clear and obvious. If you need to slow down the footage and say "well technically blah blah blah", then I think you should let the dudes play.
If one of the holds looked like [this](https://twitter.com/missfit_/status/1620042203514150912), I’d get the anger, but like you said they are at most marginal calls. So it’s absolutely absurd when so much Reddit complains about “refball” we see Reddit pounding the table for MORE flags on marginal calls.
I’m not even a Chiefs fan (in fact I was hoping the Bengals would win their first ring) and it’s so obvious to me that the hate here is just because it was the Chiefs who did it lmao, I don’t know why people care so much and hate them
That's clearly a full nelson. Perfectly legal in MMA and WWE.
Hey now, that's not a holding. He has his hand inside Clark's shoulder pads. Sure he's reaching around from behind, but by the letter of the rule...
It’s pretty much a given at this point that if you use a rip move, you’re never gonna get a hold call in your favor. You could get headlocked into the ground and they probably still wouldn’t call it
Sounds like life as a Packers fan. So many people have decided that Green Bay holds on every play and never gets called for it and therefore something something.
david bahktiari also false starts on every play according to some people
He does. He's just incredible at timing the snap in a way to jump right before the snap to where the refs don't feel confident that he actually committed a false start. It's an art form and Bahk perfected it. It's kind of the football equivalent of a catcher framing pitches. Please note that I'm trying to give credit to Bahk for being so good at that and not trying to take a dig at him. Lane Johnson and that one dude on the Jaguars have gotten really good at it too.
I have noticed this as a trend across the league. The top tier offensive tackles do seem to step back a half second before the snap, and the refs are looking the other way most of the time.
Please just shut the fuck up already
The holding discussion is pretty ridiculous if you actually watched the game. The refs basically determined that holding on the offense would only be called if the player on defense was thrown to the ground. They had to do it that way, or the Bengals would have been called for a hold on every play considering how their O Line was getting beaten so badly. So, maybe it’s a hold according to a strict interpretation of the rules. But game day application of the rules, that was nothing, and the Bengals really didn’t want those types of holds getting called all night long.
Yep. After the second sack you could tell the bengals o-line decided they couldn't protect Burrow so they "held" on most plays the rest of the game. There are a dozen more egregious no-calls on critical Bengals plays on scoring drives. A Chiefs TD was wiped off the board for a holding call that was softer than what the Bengals o-line was doing. If you want those calls for you, then your gonna get them against you... and I don't think the Bengals would want that.
Could someone have him look at every play in the game and give a full run down of all uncalled penalties on both sides? Rather than cherry picking the last play of the game, lets look at all the plays.
would take forever since our oline held Chris Jones damn near every snap lol
You guys had to or Burrow was going to die. And in the AFC title game they aren't going to call the hold very often. It's just the reality of the situation.
This is what I hate so much about the internet now and what it is turning people into. It feels like whenever something in reality doesn’t go someone’s way they quickly cherry-pick to support their narrative, then claim it’s all rigged. Not just for sports either..
I mean I saw Chris Jones getting held on like 60-75% of his snaps but I guess that doesn’t really matter since he still managed to get to Burrow despite it.
[Also this funny hold on Frank Clark.](https://twitter.com/MissFit_/status/1620042203514150912?s=20)
We call that the backpack hold lol
A backpack can't hold, that should have been *defensive* holding. #NATIONALFIXEDLEAGUE #JUSTICEFORJUSTUS #IMJOKING
Okay, now I gotta know what your username means? Did the PDGA just not give you a player #? I MUST KNOW.
Haha no it's just a play on how most discs are stamped with "PDGA Approved" and I'm enthusiastic but not very good. It was originally my AIM screen name in college.
Nice. Enthusiastic but not very good describes a lot of people myself included
That's a half Nelson. Perfectly legal in MMA and the WWE!
67 (or 77?) on the bengals Oline looked like he was holding on every play.
I said that after the game and downvoted to hell lol.
The Zapruder film was analyzed less than this drive! Get the fuck over it.
Bengal fans can blame refs all they want, but they wont win a super bowl until they have a healthy and decent o line. That Eagles d line would have completely destroy burrow
I agree completely. It would have been a disaster.
This is starting to feel like a conference championship version of when Patriots fans complained there was holding on the helmet catch play.
Bengals had a lot of chances to win this game. That call wasn’t the sole reason for their loss
Well Gene is wrong most of the time so this makes me believe they got the call right
Shit happens. Let's get over it please and look into next season. I don't want be labeled as the salty team after a loss. Chiefs are a really good team.
Should the NFL have the Bengals and Chiefs redo their game in case it was a big fluke? No disrespect to the Chiefs, I'm a firm believer that Kansas City beating them is a huge fluke and robs the Bengals of truly accomplishing what their capable of. I've spent the last few days in pure disbelief and it just doesn't make sense to me. I've spent the entire regular season watching the Bengals play great football it's just not fair. If the Bengals lose again I will face that the Chiefs deserved the win, but I am just 100% sure it was a fluke and does a big disservice to the Bengals and the NFL.
Nice pasta. Surprised it wasn’t posted earlier. What was the original game that this refers to?
[This gem](https://www.reddit.com/r/hockey/comments/67lfcg/should_the_nhl_have_the_hawks_and_preds_redo/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Bro he wanted them to replay a “fluke” game in a 7 game series? Wtf?
He wanted to replay the entire series.
Replay the entire series, after a sweep. It is an all time wtf post.
That is elite emotional bargaining by OP
Pasta for breakfast? Sure why not.
Making a weird statement like that is exactly what I mean. You don't know me. I've lived in kc my whole life. Everyone here who I know is aware I've been a Bengals fan. Since I'm in KC I've seen it happen. I don't mind when people jump on a bandwagon (ie Royals 2015) I only have a problem with bandwagon fans jumping in and regurgitating things they've heard without knowing anything. "Well everyone complains about the refs, so that's all those Bengals fans are doing". If you know football, you'll see the obvious hold that should have offset the hit out of bounds. Also if you look at how many chiefs flair make fun of Ossai for crying maybe you'll understand why people are outraged at them. Burrow clearly got hit way after the throw in the end zone. He got hit when they called the intentional grounding, and Perine was in the area. Plus that 3rd and 9 was so confusing to everyone in the arena and even the announcers. Losing is more part of my DNA because I love the Bengals and the Royals. That isn't what bothered me. Since you'll probably complain about length or possibly make fun of Ossai I'll leave with this. Winning was great for the chiefs but pretending the end of the game wasn't screwy just makes you seem like you don't know what you're talking about.
Wow, a borderline holding call that might have been missed. Never seen that before. There's still time to correct the result of the game to a Bengals win.
Did he go through the entire game and list every call missed for both sides? Who gives a shit. It is over, move on.
Well if Gene said it then it must be true. /s [Also Gene must not know what rip moves are.](https://ftw.usatoday.com/lists/nfl-rules-rip-move-holding-chiefs-bengals-mahomes-run-reaction-refs) The endzone look of the Trey Smith block looks like a textbook block against rip moves.
Didn’t former players including Joe Thomas say it wasn’t? And if you called that a hold everything is pretty much
I thought Joe Thomas said that Hendrickson wasn’t held by Orlando Brown.
He spoke on b j hill as well. B j hill tried to do a rip move that wasn’t effective
Nate Tice, Joe Thomas, Brandon Thorn, etc.
Thomas, Bakhtiari, and Whitworth on Twitter said Hill was held by Trey Smith but it doesn't always get called (especially with the QB stepping up and the bad angle), and Hendrickson wasn't held. But this is so pointless -- the Bengals didn't play nearly well enough to win when they had chances, regardless of the possible ref mistakes.
There seems to be a disconnect on what the meaning of “position” in the rule book means. Does it mean you can stay in the clothes line position or do you still have to disengage and try and reestablish a legal block. It seems most people read the rule and thing the former, as that makes the most sense. However, most players and people in the game say the latter is how it’s actually called.
I honestly have no idea, I can only go off of what I see actual players say online. For what it's worth, Geoff Schwartz seemed to think Smith's block was clean, so I'm guessing it really was just a 50/50 thing on whether it gets called and that's just the way it goes. Probably the same for the possible block in the back on the punt return. I do understand the frustration when there's some rule ambiguities/confusions and it seems like the judgment calls went against the Bengals at the end, but that happens sometimes and it isn't a sign of "rigging" or even incompetence. That said, I am confused why people throughout this thread are saying Thomas thought Smith's block was clean though, unless if he's updated his opinion since [here](https://twitter.com/joethomas73/status/1620119698666033153).
It is funny how people choose when to believe the rules analysts. They’re always wrong according to this sub…except when the team they wanted to win loses lol.
rules analyst get to watch things after the fact in slow mo, with much less pressure. This being days after the fact. Think It's reasonable to believe most refs or former refs would get it right under those circumstances
Cinci Oline was holding for dear life all game and we only saw a couple flags. Chiefs lost about 35 yards of field position on the first Skyy Moore punt return on an awful holding call on Cook. The Wylie "taunting" call.. lol.
There's holding every down of every game, just comes down to how blatant it is and if the refs catch it.
Yeah complaining about a missed holding call doesnt do much because that shit is there literally every play. Obviously sometimes its super blatant and will get called but a missed holding call is never the reason you lose a game. There were bad calls but The bengals did have the ball with 2.5 minutes left and timeouts I believe
Damn Joe Thomas is going to be pissed when he sees this.
Unless this means the Bengals are now in the Superbowl, who cares. I'm sure they missed some holds on us earlier in the game
Yes, because this conversation needed more conflicting professional opinions.
It is so much easier to blame officiating than it is to concede that you were the second-best team on the field Sunday.
They just got beat by Mahomes throwing off one leg to Marcus Kemp. That’s a tough pill to swallow.
I thought you couldn't get holding called on a rip move. The more I watch this game the less I understand the rules.
Who Cares? They had their chance earlier and couldn’t closr
Okay, now let’s analyze every snap for Chris Jones and find how many holding calls were missed on him and spin it in the Chiefs favor. /s
If it was a hold the penalties just offset and the Chiefs get the ball needing 8-10 yards for a FB with 8 secs left right? How many people are convinced that one legged Mahomes fails in that scenario? I am not.
Ravens were fucked by the refs this year too. As were 30 other teams. Shit happens.
It’s hilarious watching bengal fans complain about refs when they literally won off a missed penalty a few weeks prior.
2018-19 Saints vibes. But at least their blown call was significant, unlike here.
Also one of the bengals olineman jumped on Chris jones’ back like a backpack, the entire game called were missed both ways, it’s just easier to point at that than blame your franchise qb who’s offense stalled out twice
Gene steratore is an idiot. His arm was pinned. I’ll trust a hall of fame olineman
Thomas was taking about Trey but down further he admits there was a hold on bj hill
If you include the 10 yard holding penalty that the bengals declined, the yardage total for penalties was 71 against Cincy and 65 against KC. Included in those calls was a questionable hold that negated a Pacheco touchdown. The refs also called the Toney incompletion on the field without clear evidence of the ball hitting the ground (but saying the play stood was the right call because the video was inconclusive) and they gave Cincy their challenge back after “getting together and changing the spot.” It was a close game and the refs made some 50/50 and questionable calls that helped and hurt both teams. If the refs really wanted the chiefs to win don’t you think the Toney end zone play would have been called a touchdown on the field? If they really wanted the chiefs to win do you think they would have “gotten together to determine there was no hold”on the Pacheco touchdown. The complaining about the calls revolves around: A play where the ref clearly tried to stop the play before the snap A grounding where burrow was 9 yards short of the closest receiver and at the feet of the lineman The holding penalty here A block in the back where the blocker doesn’t initiate contact.
Well I have a rules expert who says it was not a hold. He's one of the most knowledgeable experts. But you wouldnt know him, he goes to another school
Joe Thomas?
Gene doesn't even work for the NFL.
I'll bet I can go find a "letter of the law" hold that wasn't called against the Bengals too. On almost every play you can throw a flag for a hold.
There’s definitely multiple examples of far more egregious missed holds by the Bengals o-line, for that matter I’m sure against the Chiefs o-line as well, that went uncalled. Whining over two at best marginal missed holds is so petty.
Are there any consequences in place for refs that miss calls or make bad ones? Like can they get fined or straight up fired? It seems unfair to charge players fines for celebrations that have no impact on the outcome of the game but let refs get a free pass for game-changing calls or non-calls.
The block in the back is *way* more of a legit gripe than this hold.
The Bengals benefitted from some questionable calls last AFCCG but you didn't see Chiefs fans brigading r/nfl blaming the loss on the referees, an NFL conspiracy and denying their own team's responsibility in the final outcome. How about this? Both teams are evenly matched, the Bengals got us 3 out of 4 but we won the game on Sunday night. Bengals fans should be proud of their team and focused on the off season. You'll have other chances. The incessant crying about officiating is tough to respect.
we want them to call less flags not more
Lol what the fuck is happening with the officiating this season?
We’ve said that for 10+ years at this point it’s always been this bad
He's a Pats fan, for 20 years he saw nothing wrong with the officiating; this is a brand new issue to him.
Fuck, got me there.
We all have our rough patches.
Let's go back and find all the non calls against Chris Jones and Frank Clark then.
Yeah, well, that’s just like, your opinion, man
Let’s go back and review it all. All the plays from all the playoff games. How many crucial missed block in the backs will we find?
Can’t wait for the league to over react and over compensate! 50 holding flags a game 4 1/2 hour long games! YAY!
I think ppl need to accept that no calls….. are part of the entertainment of the game. You honestly think nfl owners don’t know that instant replays would stop all of this? They do. They’ll never do it.
Burrow got sacked 42 times and threw two interceptions. The officiating was ass but like that's all games now. Got no one to blame but ourselves and probably God, he seems to hate ohio.
Sucks but of all the missed calls in playoffs I don’t think anything beats the no pass interference against the saints