The most infuriating referee decision of the day for me was the non-call when Wilson took a hard hit while sliding down. Viewed as a solitary incident the lack of a flag may be understandable, as it was a judgement call on just when the defender launched that would have resulted in a flag most of the time but not all of the time.
In the context of the game, however, it was an
atrocious non-call. Branch had just been penalized shortly before for a similar hit on a sliding QB, and by not throwing the flag on the Bears for essentially the same thing it was a complete slap in the face to concept of even officiating. It was exactly like a home plate umpire calling a larger strike zone when the visiting team is at bat.
jewhawk wrote:Also, while I agree that the officiating was horrible and one-sided all game today, it is not rigged. Put the tinfoil hats away; there's no conspiracy to rig games for certain teams. Hanlon's razor.
The question in my mind is not whether it is a result of a conspiracy, but whether it is a result of inherent biases on the part of the officials. Michael Jordan got a ton of close calls by virtue of a superstar effect where officials tended to see what they were expecting to see. In this game we saw a ton of close calls and every single one one went in the direction of the team that was playing at home, that also happened to be the favorite to win, that also happened to be the more well known team with better known plays. The call I discuss above could be an example of this as "Home team Chicago Bears Star QB Jay Cutler" was given a call and "Road team Seattle Seahawks Rookie QB Russell Wilson" did not in a very similar situation.