Ball Don’t Lie: 3 worst calls from Week 1 in the NFL
By Kristen Wong
Year after year, there's always one loser in football: The referees. Here are the absolute worst calls from Week 1.
The first week of NFL action included every emotion possible.
There was heartbreak on Monday, when Aaron Rodgers fell to the ground after four offensive snaps and was ultimately ruled out of the game. He suffered a torn Achilles, and his 2023 season is over.
There was unbridled joy, as on Thursday night when the long-laughed-at Lions defeated the reigning Super Bowl champs in a game forever asterisked *Travis Kelce was not playing.
And inevitably, there was anger and rage directed at the NFL officiating crew, which couldn't escape controversy in Week 1. They never can.
NFL referees are human and are prone to making errors. That being said, their errors tend to prove costly and make them subject to criticism every game.
With Week 1 in the rearview mirror, here are three officiating calls that fans may never let go.
Week 1 NFL Worst Calls: Missed tripping penalty on Jets' walk-off return touchdown vs Bills
In Monday night's overtime thriller between the Jets and Bills, New York exploited Josh Allen's uncharacteristic sloppiness to clinch a 22-16 victory at MetLife Stadium. In what felt like a doomed Jets loss from the start, Gang Green managed to flip the script and seal the win on a walk-off punt return touchdown by UDFA rookie Xavier Gipson.
No words. Just. Wow. Take a bow, young man.
Leave it to ESPN's John Parry and eagle-eyed Twitter users to ruin a perfectly good moment.
As Parry stated on the broadcast, the refs should have called a tripping foul on Jets linebacker Chazz Surratt, who tripped Bills' Quintin Morris with a "leg whip."
Tripping is explicitly listed as illegal in the 2023 NFL rulebook.
"You've gotta put an asterisk on it because there's a tripping call that was not made. A trip, a leg whip, right near the 23-yard line, No. 55, which would have brought the touchdown back."
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 12, 2023
ESPN's John Parry says that Jets LB Chazz Surratt should have been flagged on the GW-TD pic.twitter.com/QwP10ArAAx
Upon replay of the video, you can see Surratt miss a block on Morris around the 25-yard line and then lift his leg ever so slightly to trip him. Parry claims the NFL should have called the return back and negated the touchdown -- which would be the right call as a football purist.
As fans of the game, we believe the Jets deserved this win, arguable tripping foul and all. Let them have this moment. They won't get many more in 2023.