The Fumble call

[Joelist]

(09-14-2021, 12:27 AM)rfaulk34 Wrote: My biggest complaint about officiating is, unlike a lot that claim bias, they give the 'benefit of the doubt' on bang bang calls--and they have to. The thing is, while i don't believe they're biased, they will give that benefit to good teams over bad teams and it's not necessarily consciously. They know which team is good and which is bad, so when a bang bang play happens, they do the human thing, most of the time. It's why it seems like every time the Bengals play the Steelers, those calls always go the Steelers way. 

In a game like Sunday, neither team is necessarily better or worse than the other, so there's a better chance of them getting the call over the Vikings. 

Mostly true. But we have also seen some REALLY bad stuff (like the blatant spearing of Gio in the 2015 playoff game that they ignored). The NFL should have fired the head referee the day after the game at the latest (John Parry). That was the play out of a series of dirty Stealer plays that were all both flagrant and uncalled that caused the Bengal players to start to hit back - and then the flags flew. 

Besides that, the big issue is inconsistency. The exact same play can be clean or a foul depending on which official is looking. This is partly the fault of the league not really doing anything to refs who abuse their position and ambiguous rules.