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Honestly, the officiating in the NFL seem to me to be deteriorating. How could they ignore that hit to Rivers' head but levy all those tickytac PI calls? Must have been some makeup calls going on there, which I am not a fan of. Two mistakes are two mistakes. Don't make one into two.

trents wrote:Honestly, the officiating in the NFL seem to me to be deteriorating. How could they ignore that hit to Rivers' head but levy all those tickytac PI calls? Must have been some makeup calls going on there, which I am not a fan of. Two mistakes are two mistakes. Don't make one into two.

The missed call on the blow to Rivers head was egregious. Rivers had clearly given himself up and the defender made no effort to avoid the contact. And yes, it seems to me that refs will give a team a break after they realize they missed one. It sure seemed like that in our game with the Vikings.

I poked my head into the game a few times last night so I might be totally off base with this since I didn't watch the full game.

I think there's too many rules in the NFL and we are making it impossible for the refs to call a fair game let alone give the fans a good experience. Who doesn't expect a flag on every kickoff or punt? Who doesn't expect a flag every 4 plays in a game?

I think the Seahawks kind of knew that the refs wouldn't call every foul a few years back and got away with some borderline calls (especially Browner and Sherm back then). I believe they even mentioned it in an interview or two.

NOt sure how the NFL is going to fix this situation but it needs to be fixed before the game is completely unwatchable.

Hawks need to take care of business Sunday at the Niners as the Chiefs will be tough the following week after 10 days off. Hope we beat SF and ARZ and not get beat up in the KC game. hate to see Mullens throw for 400 again and start scoring.

Great win with the 2pts for SD

Uppercut wrote:Hawks need to take care of business Sunday at the Niners as the Chiefs will be tough the following week after 10 days off. Hope we beat SF and ARZ and not get beat up in the KC game. hate to see Mullens throw for 400 again and start scoring.

Great win with the 2pts for SD

Agree but KC may not respond well to losing in their own house to their division rival in the last :04 seconds. Depends on how they respond to that game last night as to how tough they are in Seattle. We do need to bring the noise and see how their rook QB deals with it.

RiverDog wrote:Honestly, the officiating in the NFL seem to me to be deteriorating. How could they ignore that hit to Rivers' head but levy all those tickytac PI calls? Must have been some makeup calls going on there, which I am not a fan of. Two mistakes are two mistakes. Don't make one into two.

The missed call on the blow to Rivers head was egregious. Rivers had clearly given himself up and the defender made no effort to avoid the contact. And yes, it seems to me that refs will give a team a break after they realize they missed one. It sure seemed like that in our game with the Vikings.

I really don't like that rule when a player goes down and the defender who has already committed to hitting him low then makes helmet/helmet contact.
However, it is called on a regular basis, so it probably should have been called in today's NFL, but I think that was more incidental than many others that aren't called throughout the year.

Not only is Mahomes immensely talented but he plays with incredible poise and awareness of what's going on - more so than a lot of veteran signal callers in the league. Losing Kareem Hunt was a blow to KC, however. Makes them a little less formidable.

Two words about Mahomes.
Great vision.

I agree with you, River, about not liking the targeting call when the ball carrier is falling and helmet to helmet contact is made after the defender has already committed to a below head/shoulders tackle. IMO, that is the biggest flaw in the whole set of guidelines that define targeting. It's got to be terribly frustrating to the defenders who are trying to do it right. IMO the no targeting rule is troubled by a set of guidelines that are too specific, too detailed.

I think the guidelines for determining if targeting has happened should be more general and more left up the instincts of the officials to make a call in context of the play itself. As it is now, they spend more time trying to decide what guidelines apply on any given tackle than they do in making the call itself. I think it would be helpful for the players and the officiating crew to just look at "targeting" as unnecessary roughness. In other words, did the defender intentionally use his helmet during the tackle in a way that was unnecessary, putting himself and the other player at unnecessary risk for injury.

I also think the refs need to get back to the idea of only calling penalties that are blatant and obvious infractions of the rules. There are way too many ticky-tack penalties called for holding, PI, pushing off and marginal blocks in the back. Slows the game down way too much. Let the players play.

Maholms can be anything he wants to be but the bottom line is that W.

In college, all targeting calls are reviewed, and if it is determined that the defender intentionally initiated helmet-to-helmet contact on a defenseless player, the offender is ejected from the game. Officials are encouraged to be liberal with the flags, knowing that it's going to be reviewed and can easily be picked up if it's not that bad. I'm not for slowing the game down by requesting more game stoppages for replays, but it does seem to be the only way to insure consistency.

RiverDog wrote:In college, all targeting calls are reviewed, and if it is determined that the defender intentionally initiated helmet-to-helmet contact on a defenseless player, the offender is ejected from the game. Officials are encouraged to be liberal with the flags, knowing that it's going to be reviewed and can easily be picked up if it's not that bad. I'm not for slowing the game down by requesting more game stoppages for replays, but it does seem to be the only way to insure consistency.

I've watched more than a few games where a replay has caused a player to be disqualified, and in some of those cases I wouldn't have called it targeting because the defender committed to the tackle that would otherwise be at the waist when the
ball carrier ducked into a helmet to helmet collision. I have no idea how you take those unintentional collisions out of Football. It's going to happen in such a violent sport.

trents wrote:Honestly, the officiating in the NFL seem to me to be deteriorating. How could they ignore that hit to Rivers' head but levy all those tickytac PI calls? Must have been some makeup calls going on there, which I am not a fan of. Two mistakes are two mistakes. Don't make one into two.

Agreed I am not sure what they are seeing or doing half the time, its almost like they are flipping a coin. The NFL will need to do something about this soon.

trents wrote:Not only is Mahomes immensely talented but he plays with incredible poise and awareness of what's going on - more so than a lot of veteran signal callers in the league. Losing Kareem Hunt was a blow to KC, however. Makes them a little less formidable.

NorthHawk wrote:Two words about Mahomes.
Great vision.

The proof will be born out after he has time. I've seen QBs come in and look great before they experience what could go wrong. Kapernick was one of them. Bold throwing into coverage, etc. I saw Mahomes do that last night in a TD he threw, too. I've also watched QBs do that and never look back like Marino. It is yet to be determined which Mahomes will turn out to be. Give him a year or two for teams to study and game plan him and then we'll see where he ends up.

Agreed. Time will tell if Mahomes continues to be brilliant or just a flash in the pan. But he's got more going for him athletically than many others in that same place. Kapernick's attitude was his biggest drawback to continuing success. It also remains to be seen what kind of adjustments the teams will make in defensing him. We saw that with regard to R. Wilson and how defenses have adjusted to contain him in the pocket.

As far as instant replay goes, I think the refs need to have a limit on the review time to say 20 seconds. If there is not conclusive evidence in that amount of time to change the call on the field then it should stand. They have gotten away from that principle. And no consultation with people back in New York or wherever before they make the call.

trents wrote:Agreed. Time will tell if Mahomes continues to be brilliant or just a flash in the pan. But he's got more going for him athletically than many others in that same place. Kapernick's attitude was his biggest drawback to continuing success. It also remains to be seen what kind of adjustments the teams will make in defensing him. We saw that with regard to R. Wilson and how defenses have adjusted to contain him in the pocket.

As far as instant replay goes, I think the refs need to have a limit on the review time to say 20 seconds. If there is not conclusive evidence in that amount of time to change the call on the field then it should stand. They have gotten away from that principle. And no consultation with people back in New York or wherever before they make the call.

Kaepernick had more than his attitude to hold him back. He wasn't very accurate and he wasn't nearly as elusive as Mahomes is. Kaepernick is more of a pure read option type of quarterback. But we'll see. As you noted, it's still early in his career, so as The Tuna used to say, don't break out the annointing oil just yet. Mahomes hasn't even played a full season as a starter.

There is suppose to be a time limit on how long refs can take to review a play, but I agree, there are times that the reviews take too long. But it's not always just about the play they're reviewing. If the play is reversed, they have to figure out ball placement and the time on the game clock.

RiverDog wrote:If the play is reversed, they have to figure out ball placement and the time on the game clock.

Most times I think this takes more time than the review itself.