Ball Don't Lie: 5 worst calls from Week 3 in the NFL, including Chiefs, Eagles, Cowboys

The third week of the NFL season was not short on surprises. We saw the previously undefeated New Orleans Saints hit a brick wall against an actually-good opponent. Meanwhile, the Cincinnati Bengals fell to 0-3 in yet another entirely winnable affair. Aaron Rodgers is back. The Miami Dolphins are in shambles. And yeah, Josh Allen is probably going to win MVP.

Those are just a few of the storylines from a chaotic week of football. Another storyline, as always, was the performance of the referees. Every Sunday (and Thursday, and Monday) we collectively gather around our televisions to watch the most dynamic sport in America. Nothing can match the intricacy and brute-force poetry of football.

And, on those hallowed days, we must also suffer through a barrage of whistles that interrupt and quite often taint the on-field product. NFL refs are the best of the best. The game doesn't work without them and we should respect the difficulty of such a singular job. But, it still sucks when bad calls (or non-calls) overshadow an otherwise excellent game.

That was the case on several occasions in Week 3. Here are the worst calls, focused on snippets from Chiefs-Falcons, Eagles-Saints, and Cowboys-Ravens.

Ravens were utterly apoplectic about how refs treated Cowboys on Sunday

The Baltimore Ravens outlasted the Dallas Cowboys for their first victory of the season on Sunday. It was a beautiful experience, for the most part (I am admittedly inclined toward celebrating the Cowboys' demise). Tom Brady was on call for another Cowboys game and his voice was noticeably pained as he recounted mistake after mistake.

Baltimore jumped out to a sizable early lead, but the Cowboys did mount an impressive comeback down the stretch. The final score skewed only three points in favor of Baltimore. Dallas deserves credit for putting up a fight, but there was a bit of unintentional help from the refs, too.

There's just nothing worse than a roughing the passer call that straight up isn't roughing the passer. I understand the impetus to protect quarterbacks, but what are we doing here, folks? Dak Prescott takes a hit as he's throwing and is granted free penalty yards and, soon after, a touchdown.

This was not the only call in Baltimore's favor. In this clip below, Dak Prescott shovels a pass to his offensive lineman to avoid a sack, which should have been counted as a forward pass with no eligible receivers in the area. Intentional grounding. Instead, Cowboys guard Tyler Smith was called for illegal touching, which took a Ravens safety off the board.

Lamar Jackson summed up the feelings of every Ravens fan with his ref interaction late in the game.

Refs missed an obvious (and dangerous) illegal hit in Saints-Eagles

The Saints and Philadelphia Eagles game on Sunday afternoon was a slugfest, both literally and figuratively. It was 3-0 going into the fourth quarter, when a flurry of points led the Eagles to a much-needed victory.

Early in the final frame, however, there was a frightening moment. Eagles WR DeVonta Smith was sandwiched on a tackle in the middle of the field before slumping to the ground without his helmet. Then, No. 98 in a Saints uniform, Payton Turner, appeared to dive straight at Smith's unprotected dome.

That is about as overtly dirty as it gets in today's NFL.

You have to throw the flag there. The NFL has taken several steps to project players to avoid plays of this nature. Concussions and head injuries in general have been a major focal point in the NFL discourse after the Tua Tagovailoa injury a couple weeks ago. We can't be diving unprompted at bare heads, especially on a dead play.

Chiefs beat the Falcons in part due to egregious pass interference no-call

The Kansas City Chiefs picked up a 22-17 road victory over the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday Night Football. It was a compelling match, and further proof that Atlanta can, in fact, stick with the best teams in the NFL. The loss moves the Falcons to 1-2 after a tough schedule to open the season, but frankly, one could argue that Atlanta should be 2-1 with consecutive victories over Philadelphia and KC. That would obviously change the conversation around the Falcons and their new quarterback, Kirk Cousins.

Late in the fourth quarter, the Falcons were faced with a third-and-five on the Chiefs six-yard line. Cousins dropped back and rocketed a pass to tight end Kyle Pitts in the back of the end zone. Pitts is a big dude, and probably Atlanta's best bet on 50-50 balls. This wasn't a 50-50 ball, however, because Pitts was smothered to a blatantly illegal extent by Chiefs safety Bryan Cook.

Truly, what are we doing here?

This comes just a week after the Chiefs beat the Bengals on a controversial pass interference call involving Rashee Rice. I'm not going to say Kansas City is benefitting from some high-level NFL conspiracy, but it's not uncommon for the established best teams to get the, um, benefit of the doubt in certain spots. Pitts' ability to catch the ball was impeded from the moment he crossed the goal line on his route. This should've been first and goal, Atlanta, with a chance to take the lead.

Kansas City was the beneficiary of multiple missed calls throughout the game, including this missed facemask call as Ray-Ray McCloud sprinted up the sideline with a chance to put Atlanta in the red zone, maybe even the end zone.

Obviously, Mahomes is not conspiring with the refs before games — we don't need to indulge that silliness — but we can point out when a team is unfairly disadvantaged by lackluster calls or non-calls.