Attyla the Hawk":dsvjkz5r said:
Few things:
1. Road teams generally get more questionable calls on them. That's fairly uniform throughout the league. Not many. But there is a small inflation of non procedural (LOS violations) calls against visiting clubs.
2. Holds happen virtually every down. Some teams (Seattle does for sure) work under the assumption that refs will intentionally not call every one they see when they see it all the time. It's the cheating version of the big lie. If you lie big enough and often enough, then impact of consistent lies is lessened.
3. Most holds that get flagged are ones where a clear advantage is gained. In the SF game, the holds you saw were all at the point of attack. Where it was stupid obvious that SF was going to be in position to tackle for no gain/loss and we held them, allowing us to make sizeable gains. If you remember way back to when we had Robert Turbin. He probably lost 60% of his potential career yardage for Seattle due to holds on his runs he broke to the outside. Every single one of those holds were legit, and all at the critical point/player who could have made a play.
That's not to say all holds at the POA get called. They certainly don't. But they naturally are because the ball carrier is in the immediate vicinity and one or more refs' focus is going to trail the ball carrier by design and training. More eyes means more chance one will subjectively consider a violation.
On the Griffin/Pettis DPI call, I saw it as possible either way. I think the play was mostly clean. But Griffin's problem was that his right arm was in contact with Pettis' waist. I didn't see Griffin obviously turn Pettis -- however a defender who works around a receiver to play the ball absolutely is going to get flagged if the referee behind the play sees his off arm wrapped around the waist. It's a call that happens 9 times out of 10. Griffin didn't need to wrap his arm to make the play and I don't think it ultimately helped him to make it. But doing so almost assured a DPI call if a ref was in position to see it.
Logical AND reasonable response? Are you sure you're a .Net member?
The league and officials are very clear on what they determine each and every penalty to be, and spend the entire off season each year fine tuning and changing rules that are vague or the owners and players consider problem calls.
Like the catch rule, and that was changed and now it's far more clear language as to what's a catch.
Now do the refs miss stuff, or call ticky tack holding and PI? Absolutely, and I bitched about it yesterday. IMO what needs to be enforced is some sort of "hey understand the play and the moment in the game, and don't call things so black and white with no regard for what's going on."
Mullen's throws up a prayer on 3rd and long cause he's about to get destroyed by Reed and PI is called on Griffin on a 50/50 call at best at a crucial time of the game? So unless it's egregious holding or PI, you swallow the whistle because you're ruining the game for all involved.
Use discretion, no one wants games decided by ticky tack penalties.
