Pussy Ass NFL Sides with Carey

Big shocker here, folks: on the weekly NFL Network program where Mike Pereira defends (to a fault) his referrees, he maintained that Mike Carey made the right call on the controversial roughing the passer penalty.

I've watched this segment a few times, and I find it pretty interesting. A lot of calls I think are terrible actually stand up pretty well under scrutiny. Of course, that wasn't the case here, as the replay clearly showed that Justin Smith's shoulder hit the ground before Gradkowski's head.

So what was Pereira's response? That the official didn't have the luxury of a replay. For those who don't speak bullshit, here's the translation: "Yeah, ok, fine. He blew the call. But there's not a damn thing to do about it, so shut up."

Let me state here that I think Mike Carey is one of the best officials in the game. He gets it right most of the time, and when he has to make an unpopular call, he usually takes the extra time to explain to the crowd why he's fucking over their team. Not five minutes before the roughing call I remarked to my step brother how much I liked Carey, even though he'd been tagging our boys all day long for stupid shit. But the problem isn't Mike Carey. He made the call he though was right at the time. And given a split second to react, I'm not sure I would've done a better job.

But why can't penalties be challenged? Especially when one blown call can change the outcome of the game? The NFL, as an organization, is like a stubborn old man. It refuses to accept innovation, it constantly challenges any attempts to bring the itself into the 21st century, and it often shits its own pants. Which is why it walks so funny. Ok, I'm lost again.

My point is this: There were two blown calls late in the game. One of them was not calling WR Michael Clayton's late 4th quarter catch a touchdown. One review later: TD TB. If this play wasn't reviewed, the Bengals quite possibly would have won the game. The other blown call was the roughing the passer call on Smith. Non-reviewable, although just as egregious as the Clayton call. And it may have cost the Bengals the game.

And that sucks and we just have to deal with it.

Sigh.