While NFL officiating has been heavily criticized this season, it was taken to a whole new level last night on Twitter, as Lions fans and sports personalities alike were taking to the social media site to criticize the guys in stripes for calling a few controversial calls against the Lions and helping the Packers to a game-winning drive.
Of all the tweets that were sent into the Twitter-verse regarding the game last night, one struck a little too close to home, as former Lions linebacker Stephen Tulloch pointed out that this is not the first time that the Lions have been screwed over by the refs.
Only the @LIONS. @NFL pic.twitter.com/HejYTkDBNR
— Stephen Tulloch (@stephentulloch) October 15, 2019
Using this tweet as a compass, let's travel a bit back in time to look at each one of these controversial, going in counter-clockwise order and starting with the picture in the top left corner.
Falcons, 2017
Two seasons ago, the Detroit Lions lost to the Atlanta Falcons in excruciating fashion. Another fourth-quarter comeback by Matthew Stafford ended with a Golden Tate that looked to be a touchdown.
But the refs thought otherwise. They reversed Tate's touchdown saying that he was down at the one-yard line, and due to the Lions' lack of a timeout preventing the required ten-second runoff, the Lions lost that game, 30-26.
Wild card weekend vs the Seahawks, 2017
While the Lions were able to overcome officiating blunders in 2016 to make it to the playoffs, they lost in the Wild Card round in the playoffs due in part to a controversial touchdown made by Seahawks receiver Paul Richardson.
As impressive as the catch was, Richardson secured the catch to convert the first touchdown of the game by clearly grabbing the Lions defender's facemask. While there was a lot of football to play after that catch, the missed call certainly got the Lions' morale down.
Bears, 2010
This is usually the first play mentioned when discussing times the officials screwed over the Lions, as even though it appeared the future Hall-of-Fame receiver Calvin Johnson made a game-winning catch against the Bears, it was ruled that he did not “complete the process of the catch”, giving away the touchdown and the games for the Lions.
This catch was so controversial that it sparked a debate that lasted for most of the 2010s regarding what a catch truly is in the national football league, and the catch rule has been tweaked since 2018, making plays like Johnson's ruled as a catch.
Seahawks, 2015
Last night's officiating catastrophe wasn't the first time that Detroit got screwed over on Monday Night Football, as back in 2015, Johnson fumbled inside the one-yard line.
As the ball rolled toward the end zone, it can clearly be seen that Seahawks linebacker K.J. Wright intentionally bats the ball out of bounds, which is illegal. Had the refs called that correctly, they would have got a new set of downs down 13-10 at the Seahawks 1-yard line to clinch the game.
Packers, 2015
That Seahawks missed call wasn't the only time in the 2015 season that an opposing team was helped to a win over Detroit by the refs. As Aaron Rodgers dropped back to pass in the fourth, a facemask was wrongly called against former Lions Devin Taylor, giving the Packers a new set of downs and ten more yards of field position.
That field position ended up being the difference in that Packers loss, as Rodgers did what he does best and launched a hail mary that landed in the hands of a Packers receiver to give Green Bay a controversial win
Wild Card weekend vs Cowboys
Are you sensing a pattern here? The Lions were yet again screwed in the playoffs by the officials, as they ignored a blatant pass interference in the fourth quarter on former Cowboys linebacker Anthony Hitchens, as he essentially tackled former Detroit Lions tight end, Brandon Pettigrew, to lead to an incomplete pass.
While that call did not come at the end of the game like most of the games mentioned above, this non-call killed the Lions momentum, and while a shanked punt by Sam Martin and a game-winning touchdown caught by former Monday Night commentating embarrassment Jason Witten won the Cowboys game, it would be interesting to see how that game plays out should the Lions get a new set of downs on that call.
As the old adage goes, once is a fluke, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern. It's clearly looking like a pattern that the NFL continues to miss calls against the Lions and perhaps wants to see the lovable losers continue to lose while upsetting Lions fans nationwide.
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