COVID-19 has turned the NFL schedule upside down, but officiating still found a way to steal the storyline in Week 4
Week 4 still featured nearly a full slate of games, minus the Steelers-Titans tilt that was supposed to take place on Sunday afternoon. The scare that was the potential postponement of Patriots-Chiefs until later in the season ended at just that, with the NFL determined to play this potential AFC postseason preview on Monday, perhaps unjustly.
Semantics aside, the three worst calls from Week 4 were so overwhelmingly bad that the typical “honorable mentions” section isn’t necessary. Yes, truly, the officiating in Week 4 was so awful from some of these “bad apples” that all of my focus must go towards those select few.
Said calls did impact the course of games and, in some cases, might’ve had a final say in the results. Officials are untouchable in every sport and that’ll remain the case. My grade, or even a straight-up message from Roger Goodell himself, wouldn’t do much to break that collective ego.
We all know what happened when replacement officials entered the equation. Sure, these are bad, but not 2012 bad.
3. The Chains do lie
Make no mistake: The Seahawks deserved to beat the Dolphins on Sunday. Seattle is the superior team in almost every way and played down to their competition, which included the bearded Ryan Fitzpatrick once again hanging around against a potential Super Bowl contender. It’s a yearly occurrence, and it will never make sense.
However, the Dolphins were jobbed on this spot, assuming it was actually the appropriate spotting of the ball in the first place. The argument from Seattle’s point of view is that their ball-carrier was given a raw deal in the first place. But the space between the ball and the chains must be honored in any case, forcing the Seahawks’ hand and potentially giving Miami the ball back with a chance to tie down just one possession. We’ve seen crazier outcomes in the modern NFL.