Biggest NFL Week 7 Overreactions

The Refs Screwed the Patriots, Steelers

The irony of the New England Patriots losing a game over an obscure rule that no one knew about before the game is just too much for me to handle.  We all know by now that the “line-overload” rule was just passed this spring by the NFL’s competition committee and the Patriots were the first team to be penalized on Sunday, allowing Jets kicker Nick Folk to retry a field goal at a closer 42 yards and win the game for New York. But oh the outrage on social media following that game!

Later in the day, the social media outrage was at a high level again for the Steelers and Ravens close game. After the Flacco led the Ravens on an eight minute drive to tie up the score with a little less than two minutes remaining, Steelers WR Emmanuel Sanders fielded the ensuing kickoff from deep in the Steelers end zone. He appeared to have ran it back 107 yards for the game-winning score until it was determined that a ref had whistled the play dead when he stepped out of bounds at the 37-yard line. Cue outrage. The play was not reviewable, because it was not ruled a scoring play on the field. The call on the field was that he stepped out of bounds so that cannot be reviewed to then turn the play into a touchdown, just not the way the review process is set up. Sure the refs on the field clearly weren’t on the same page as not all of them indicated the play was dead back at the 37, but they did get the call right upon review; Sanders did step slightly on the line. Still, the return was good enough for the Steelers to set themselves up for a Shaun Suisham game-winning field goal as time expired so it wasn’t a total loss.