I hate to be this person. Detest it to the core. The reason? Fans have a painfully deep and detailed memory of every call that has gone against their club dating back to forever, and so bringing up the moment when a call—or, in the case of the Browns and Colts, a series of egregious calls—benefits a team immeasurably can open up a firehouse of whataboutism that would tear a skin off a rhinoceros.
To be clear, though, my purpose for being here is not to grumble about the Browns winning a football game.
Instead of writing about football in my own basement, I would still be in my parents’ basement attempting to unglue my hands from a PlayStation controller if I could have created a Madden roster that somehow defeats a talented NFL opponent with just one superhuman defensive end.
Apart from my opinions about Deshaun Watson, the Browns have assembled a football club that is virtually impervious to disaster.
Even after surrendering nearly 40 points to Gardner Minshew, the NFL’s greatest defense, there they are, enjoying St. Elmo’s during the flight home and raising a glass to yet another thrilling triumph. Play at the level of a replacement quarterback will get this team into the conferencetitle game.
My issue stems from a referee performance that was so poor that Gene Steratore, a CBS house rules commentator, remarked something to the effect of, “I would have probably continued the conversation if I were in that huddle of referees.”
You have to interpret referee analyses carefully, much like you would a declaration from the queen of England. Between the lines, lies the true contempt. This is the closest a former zebra will ever get to a Vince Lombardi jersey.How in the world is this happening?
Amari Cooper was called for a flag after his thigh pad was touched, negating a forced fumble. On a pass thrown out of the back of the end zone, Donovan Peoples-Jones drew another one.
A neutral observer in the booth who could have seen what the rest of us were seeing—that this crew was pounding a Colts squad that was punching much above its weight class—would have almost certainly rejected these two decisions.
Colts coach Shane Steichen described the entire ordeal as a character development following the game. That must be the only way to interpret it without delving too deeply into conspiracy theory.
Question the Jets and Sauce Gardner about the Jets-Chiefs game’s conclusion. This year, ask a few other coaches. In 2023, we have enough technology to bake convection cakes wirelessly, feed pets, and operate cars while remaining oblivious to what is going on around us.
Here’s another guy I detest being: the one who says the game is rigged. I swear that I’m not. I haven’t microdosed on Arian Foster, but I have watched enough NFL football from the sidelines to understand what complete mayhem it is. It is not feasible to stage a phony wrestling match. The Ultimate Warrior might be questioned before to SummerSlam. The nation’s quickest and fittest people are much more difficult to coordinate.
However, the longer the NFL refuses to implement plain sense reform in the form of a sky judge or some other kind of real-time mechanism that can overturn horrifying calls—hire Judge Judy, please—the more this league supports the kind of person that none of us want to become.
The individual who shares screenshots of FanDuel receipts that are affected. It reminds me of how college football for a long time ignored common sense measures to prevent signal theft because, well, maybe, coaches liked being able to take signals? What is keeping us from believing that human error is caused by some evil force that is obviously fixable but will never be?
The argument that reviewing every penalty will prolong the game makes me giggle. Every Sunday, we are like starfish, hooked to our living room couches for a solid twelve hours of football. In human history, we have never been more sedentary as we are now. Instead, where are we heading? Beyond?
It’s difficult not to feel a great deal of empathy for football referees. Any speed is difficult to evaluate at the speed of light. There are some angles that are entirely unfavorable to the human eye, which probably affected what we witnessed on Sunday in the last minute at Lucas Oil Stadium. It was probably what we witnessed when Gardner greeted Marquez Valdes-Scantling in the secondary, much like we might greet an aunt or cousin on Thanksgiving, but it appeared dangerous enough for a split second.
What happens when those wrongs go uncorrected remains the problem. swept aside. hidden by misleading comments from people who had the ability to flip a switch to make tomorrow look better.
Instead, the NFL will be left with more cynics. More aluminum hats. More people that none of us should become and that none of us can tolerate.
