by Ryan Bush
As bad a game as Sunday afternoon’s hit-parade was for the
Dallas Cowboys, three hours in Seattle
might have been just as brutal for the replacement referees. No, the Dallas-Seattle crew didn’t bungle the
game like their colleagues allegedly did in Philadelphia
and St. Louis,
but one particular fourth-quarter play is deserving of a second look. And, if I know the media, they’ll replay it
many more times than that over the course of this week.
Seahawks Golden Tate "blocks" Cowboys Sean Lee
Cowboys linebacker Sean Lee was in pursuit of a scrambling
Russell Wilson when Seattle
wide receiver Golden Tate reversed field and planted his helmet squarely in
Lee’s chest, resulting in what is commonly referred to as a “de-cleater.” Lee, one moment on his feet, blinked only to
find himself on his back, while Seattle
players erupted in celebration on the sideline.
As any rules guru would have expected, a yellow hankie then
fell to the turf. Tate’s hit was golden
without a doubt, but also illegal. Any
defensive player in Lee’s position heading downfield at a vertical angle is
considered in a defenseless position, which prohibits an offensive player from
going against the grain and blocking him while leading with the head or
shoulder. The rule was implemented
several years ago to avoid what happened Sunday, Lee on his backside staring
wide-eyed through the stadium’s partially-enclosed roof.
Come to find out, the yellow flag wasn’t for Tate’s sniping
incident, but for an altercation downfield involving Dallas linebacker Bruce Carter. Carter was deemed guilty of a late-hit on Wilson, after the
quarterback had scampered out of bounds. There was no mention of a Seattle infraction, and
the officiating crew started marking off the fifteen-yard penalty.
It’s a mystery how the entire crew managed to miss a
collision so close to the ball-carrier that nobody else in the stadium
missed. Couple that with replays of the
personal foul penalty they managed to slap Carter with, who ran Wilson out of
bounds only a few yards away from where Lee was unexpectedly reclining, and you
could almost envision the Union and League reaching an agreement today in a
consolidated effort to protect the league’s integrity.
Local writers tried to protect the refs, referring to
Carter’s late-hit as a “soft shove.”
Actually, Carter barely laid hands on Seattle’s quarterback. It was a powder-puff example of touch
football. Somehow, someway, somewhere,
the refs interpreted the incident as unnecessary roughness, completely ignoring
Lee’s pulverized frame nearby.
It’s a double-whammy against the replacement refs that could
have affected the outcome of a game. Fortunately for all involved, this wasn’t one of those times.
“Just to answer that as unemotionally as possible,” Cowboys
head coach Jason Garrett said, “I thought that was a defenseless player who was
hit. Initially, that’s what we thought
the call was going to be. Apparently
something happened at the end of the down where they called it on us… It seems
to be that’s something the league is trying hard to guard against, and that
might be a pretty good example of what that was..........There were a lot of football plays in the game. And that really had nothing to do with the
outcome of the game.”
| Head Coach Jason Garrett reacts to Late Hit penalty |
But with that said, it can hardly be considered good
business for the NFL to have an officiating crew on the field who are oblivious
to such an obvious foul, and then justify the landing of a flag by pulling a
personal foul out of a place where nothing of the kind exists.
The NFL needs to stop squabbling over nickels and dimes, and
get the pros back out there. Before this
gets any worse.
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