Did officiating impact this weekend’s games?

Who better to discuss them with?

My friend Will Brinson, senior NFL writer, CBSSports.com, and no longer writes. But the Pick Six Podcast is there for you. Does it take less time to do them when you only have two games, Will Brinson? Yeah, it should, but sometimes it doesn't.

It depends on what happens with the games, right? The Chiefs and Biggles game was fantastic. There were a lot of questionable officiating situations that occurred in that one. Of course, people at college are like, we don't want to hear about the officials. It's like, look, man, I'm going to tell you the eight trending topics on Twitter, the eight top trending topics on Twitter right now are like NFL RIG, NFL refs, thanks NFL. I was like, here, I think we're going to talk about it. It's been a lot less time, obviously, on Eagles and 49ers just because of the nature of that game.

But yeah, I mean, I'm pretty good at stretching the amount of time that, you know, I can stretch it out a little bit if need be. Here's the thing about the officiating in the Cincinnati, Kansas City game that, at least the way it sticks with me, and I am one to not really give credence to, like I know officiating manages the game or it can really impact the outcome of a game. Uh, in general, I believe that teams don't necessarily lose games because of the officials.

They lose games of their own volition. And I think that I think the number one factor in the game last night was Kansas City's defense, not the officiating in this game. But there were the Bengals got the the wrong side of the coin on basically every questionable call.

All of them, including like this is a subtle one. It was a fourth down that they ruled. It would have been fourth down, I guess they rule. Or maybe it was fourth down and they ruled he was short of the line again. And then they went back and looked at it. And the only rule, the only view that showed that he got a first down was an off angle. The only angle right down the line looked like he was probably short and they still gave them the first down.

Well, in that in that particular instance, you're referring to hashtag pack pro Marcus founded Scantling, right? Who had a great game at a huge I mean, like I by and large agree with you that like, you know, players, you know, players win the games. You can, regardless of officiating out there, what happens with a certain officiating stuff for the most part, you know, it's, it's, you know, certain teams, you know, the teams are in the game, the players win the game.

But in this case, too, the MBS is realizes how they short. It's a great, it's a great, it's a really risky and aggressive move. He holds the ball out before he's, you know, down on the ground, stretching out for the first down. But then, and I'm pretty sure the rule book states it just like this. If you voluntarily retract the ball, it's not where the ball, it's not where your forward progress was. So if you, if you extend your hand like that, where he was, and then you voluntarily retract it, it's where the ball is when your knee hits the ground. So not only do they spot it, but they spotted it correctly the first time and then went back and reviewed it and misinterpreted the rules. And I guess that's sort of like, that sort of might be for the officiating.

And I, and I don't, I like, I really don't, I try not to, I don't do a very good job, but I try not to complain about it on the podcast too much or on, you know, radio stuff, but it's like the NFL is a $14 billion business. They have like an Eagles and 49ers game. Devontae Smith catches a ball down the sideline and it appears an incredible catch on fourth and three. Um, and when, when, when next year, I need to use the side to go for it, but unbeknownst to literally everyone on planet earth, because the replay wasn't sure, including the people with Fox, because the route, the broadcast, the replay wouldn't even show until they went to commercial break. This ball clearly hit the ground. Now Devontae Smith does a signal where you make a catch like that. Usually you celebrate, if you don't hit the ground, you know, sometimes you'll, you know, you can see if he pounds it too fast together and he starts telling everybody to hurry up to run a play, the Eagles sprint up there. They run a play, um, calcium and didn't get his challenge when I got, but it would have been difficult for, and like I mentioned in, in our slack and maybe with the texture, I was like, are we, is it a ball was loose? Cause you can kind of see it moving a little bit from one angle, which would have prompted me at that point in time, given the, given that it was fourth and three, you know, CNC championship games, you would get the ball back around midfield versus the Eagles having a first and goal.

I think I'm throwing the challenge flag anyway, but there wasn't a great replay for college guys to say you should do this. However, the NFL in theory has like all kinds of feeds in the control room. It's surely somebody at the NFL before the Eagles could run another play, solve that ball, hit the ground.

And if not, what are we doing? Like that's cause they have this replay assist to correct obvious mistakes. And while that wasn't an obvious mistake by an official, cause it was difficult to see, right. It is clearly like it was one of the two or three biggest plays of the entire game. Like that was worth the, I wouldn't look at the advanced stats that that play was with bigger wind percentage swing and a bigger expected points added, uh, then Christian recovery's 23 yard touchdown that tied the game up.

Oh yeah. I mean, it's crazy like that, you know, and so it just, it just bothers me that there, the lack of consistency with which the NFL manages these replays and manages these, um, manages the officiating and all of that. And the lack of transparency, they don't want to admit that the officials make mistakes, even though we all know they do. It's like, it's not, it's not like it's incompetent. It just sort of bugs me. I mean, they've already told us that officials make mistakes because we have instant replay.

Uh, that's, that's inherited. If the officials got them all right, we wouldn't need instant replay in any sport. All right. So wait a second. So did I just learn something that the NFL could have overturned that call on their own without Kyle Shanahan because Kyle Shanahan said after the game that I didn't want to throw my flag because the only replay that he saw looked like a catch and he didn't feel like throwing a time out away.

Um, which maybe they should have done anyway, but he should have done it, but, but yes, yes. The NFL. So, you know, so again, replay assist, which got instituted sometime in the middle of last year without any formal announcement or any like explanation of the guidelines of what it would be used. And nobody really knew what it was called until Mike Jericho was like, that's the replay assist. We've been told about on the NBC broadcast, the playoff broadcast was in the bingles of the Raiders last year. It was like, excuse me, what is the name of it?

Okay. That's interesting. No, internally, I'm sure there's stuff there's been babies about, but what happens is when a mistake is made by the officials and they did do it once yesterday, I'm trying to take exactly what it was. They, they will come back and say after a conversation on the field, but it's like they have it huddled up on a spotted ball. They did it on the spotted ball. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, they, they, that's right.

They did it with a spot of all. They say after, after, uh, after a conversation on the field, there's no conversation on the field. Somebody in New York is buzzing into their ears saying, Hey, this is messed up. And, but they don't want it to be, they don't want it to look like they're being overturned by an eye in the sky. They want it to look like, you know, we have a lot of them figured it out because they don't want the, they're, they're, they're the hemp is an organization that doesn't want it to look like it's bad PR, even though trying to like cover up the mistakes is even worse PR than just being like, you know what, there's like six old dudes out there running around and trying to keep up these high level athletes and spot the ball in their eyes from 50 yards away. Sometimes it doesn't work out perfectly.

It's okay to make mistakes. You know, it's, it's the last time I heard of the NFL changing a rule midstream was in week 18, when, uh, when they decided to ignore the rule that they put in place for canceled games due to COVID simply by using winning percentage, uh, as the, uh, the, the general backup rule, they decided now that they weren't going to use winning percentage, that they were going to basically Jerry rig the, uh, the way they did the standings, just in case it was Buffalo, Kansas city, we would have that at a neutral site, uh, real quick before we break and we'll come back and we'll talk about, uh, you know, a little bit more of both games. Do you think that we are headed in the near future to neutral site conference championship games? Uh, I hate, I hate even think about it. It's so gross to think about, um, it would not surprise me at all, you know, look at, um, you know, look at, let me look at college football is right there. I mean, we love tradition and that's why we do that.

They're like, Oh wait, we can make more money. Let's all right. Let's, you know, we're just being like, they're not expanding the playoffs for the good of like the good of the fan, you know, it's anything that they're doing is like for money.

Right. I mean, that's, you know, as long as we know that it's fine. And I think they're fairly kind of transparent about it, but yeah. Um, I don't, I don't think that that's an outrageous possibility in the future. It's an outrageous possibility in the sense of like, if you do that, it's terrible. Um, it's not an outrageous possibility in the sense of like, it would not surprise me if the NFL decided that it could, you know, uh, you know, you could showcase your stadium, you know, we're only going to showcase one stadium per year. There's a whole process for applying for the Superbowl. They do it like five years advance for the location. If you build a new stadium, you get the benefit of it.

It would not surprise you at all. If they said, you know what a neutral site game would be, uh, you know, a really cool thing. Now, I think if they do that, the problem is if you do that, you are, you have created this 17 player where you've expanded the playoffs to the point where there's only one team that gets a buy and then they get hopeful to finish her out. Well, you are, you know, if you want to, you want to do a reward the number one seed, I mean, you are really taken away from the one seed.

Yep. If you know, let's say like the Tennessee Titans get the one seed, right. And they ended up having to play the Kansas city chiefs and the ASC championship game, which I think actually happened. Um, but maybe it was the one seed, but you get the point. Um, the, and instead of hosting a Nashville and getting all like the Titans beds are not going to travel the same way, the chiefs fans travel where they host the bills and they have to go to like, it's already been decided ahead of time that the neutral site stadium is going to be in the Meadowlands for whatever reason.

Right? Well, all of a sudden, you, you know, I think you just run the risk of taking away the, um, the, the competitive, the competitive advantage that you were trying to give for the reward, the number one seed with by moving the, you know, cause like I said, LA, right. And, you know, there's just so many different issues with it where you're asking these fans to travel for a championship game instead of saying, are you going to hurt?

I hate the idea. How about, how about just looking at it from a fan perspective? I mean, there's a, there's a competitive perspective too, but how about a team's fans that invest the entire season, right? Wouldn't be able to like go to their own stadium for a conference championship game. You'd have to sit, you'd have to send the, uh, the, the, the bills to Arizona. Are you, are you, are we joking?

Yeah. And, and let's not forget too, that when, you know, it looked like, again, from a fan perspective, you know, it's one thing to say, okay, you know, the, the teachers made the super bowl. You now have everyone's in Kansas city who, you know, could have done it ahead of time. You can run the risk and, you know, got like refundable tickets or refundable hotel rooms or whatever, but now you have, you know, you have two weeks to get your travel together to get to Arizona. It's going to be expensive no matter what it's right.

The bowl hotels are a thousand bucks a night, but you know, you can put it all together and it's exciting time. It would be really tough to pull off if you're, you know, let's say you travel on the road for a couple of playoff games and now you got to, it's just, it's just, it's just damning the fans for, for more exposure and dollars. And I can't stand the idea. And that's why the NFL will definitely do it.

All right. I don't, I do think that you got to remember, you know, something like this, but in order for it to happen, would have to pass through, you know, an owner's vote. And, you know, when you talk about doing that, yeah, you could grow the pie a little bit, but you would also be, you know, if you're like Clark, you know, if you're Clark Holland, you're like, nah, I'm not voting for that. I would wager right now that they get the requisite votes to do that. I don't think, I don't think, I don't think it would happen for like five years personally. Five whole years.

That's not that long a time. It's going to, it will happen. All right. We'll come back. Apparently Steve Wilkes is not the only Carolina head coaching finalist to be looking for a job. Will Brinson, Pick Six Podcast moderator joins us. You leave for the Super Bowl when next, next Sunday? Yeah, next Sunday afternoon, I believe. I don't know what time. I'll find out later. That's fine.

You don't need to know right now if you leave next Sunday. Let me, let me, first of all, before we get to the game and anything else about this past weekend of football, your level of shock, mine was pretty low, that Kellen Moore, like Steve Wilkes, needs to find a job. Dallas Cowboys let their offensive coordinator, Wunderkid, go. Yeah, I mean, you know, I mean, one, it's hilarious that he was like one of the Panthers finalists. Interesting.

Yes, I agree. It's like two of the three finalists, all three of the, all three of the Carolina Panthers finalists, including the one that the guy they hired got fired in 20 and during the 2022 season or right afterwards. Which is amazing.

Like even the guy they hired already got fired in the middle of the season. That's whatever. I find that amusing about. Anywho.

Yeah, I'm not that shocked here. I think when, you know, Mike McCarthy took over the Cowboys job, he didn't want to keep telling more, but Jerry Jones really likes telling more. They played back at quarterback there. He had, you know, he had helped, you know, sort of get Dak, you know, he'd been working with Jack and they wanted to try and keep some continuity. Mike McCarthy had only not called plays, I think for one year with the Packers, gave it up, didn't work great.

And then he vowed never to do it again. So the fact that he'd been letting Kellen Moore call plays these past few years, frankly, been pretty surprising. And, you know, Jerry said he wants Mike McCarthy to coach as long as, you know, Tom Landry, which sure that, that doesn't happen in the modern NFL, but whatever. And I think, you know, he can say, he can tell that he wants, he could prop up Mike McCarthy all he wants, but when Mike McCarthy let's go, I think six coaches initially, and then later fires, Kelly Moore, I mean, it tells you that as near as much as the Cowboys have, um, you know, have had success on offense the last few years and they have, and they, you know, won a lot of games the last two years, it's clear that, and this is how it works with a lot of teams, but the Cowboys in particular with Jerry Jones and his impatience and desperation, given one more Superbowl, at least, um, when, you know, when you have the Eagles who are now in there going to the Superbowl for the second time in five years, after completely retooling it to like, there's like two different head coaches, two different starting quarterbacks, um, you know, a whole different, uh, set up like, you know, they, they, they go through the draft, they added all these pieces that, you know, they get this new coach who gets them to the Superbowl. It's like, there's that. And then you have the giant thing into the playoffs that, you know, they lose and get blown out, but they don't get there. There's just all these factors that go into, you know, as much as Mike McCarthy's regular season was a good year, especially with Dak being hurt, you know, that Jerry Jones is, you know, wants to see more, just wants to see that, that next step in, in playoff success.

And I think that's where you get that internal pressure. And that's why you see the change there at, uh, at the offensive coordinator position. Um, I think I saw where I think Mike McCarthy's going to call plays. He is going to call plays. Here's, here's the thing about Kellen Moore. And this is a fireable offense to me. Did you design that final play? Because if the answer is yes, that it was your decision, then yeah, you got to go. Cause I don't even know what that was about. I mean, it's, it's, it's not that that's like the final play of his Cowboys coaching career, but it does look like he could be a possibility for the, uh, Chargers job.

And I just realized I used up all the time. That's fine. Uh, let's, uh, we have one more, uh, one more minute. Your early thoughts on Superbowl, what is this?

57? Your early thought, whatever the number is, your early, early thoughts on the Superbowl. Um, I mean, also match up with a lot of storylines, you know, the two, two number one seed, the two best teams in football for, for much of the year. Um, really the two teams that we debated, like, oh, you know, which one are these the best teams in football? Um, you have 80 reading at the Eagles, which we thought we'd ever seen. You have the Kelsey brothers going off against each other. You have, um, you know, a whole host of different storylines. It's I think that I think the point spread will be really fascinating too, because it opened at KC minus one, got up to KC minus two and like within an hour of the game, the Eagles or the, excuse me, the, you know, the chief came ending.

It was already like, he was minus two and a half. And so we're going to see that thing, ping pong around and bounce around a bunch. And that's, that's kind of interesting to me from a, you know, watching like, you know, where's the money going and who's, you know, who's betting on who, uh, you have both the quarterbacks, my homes, the jail and hurts have dealt with injuries late in the year. Like how much is that going to affect the spread?

How much does that affect the game? Um, I think it would be an awesome, awesome Superbowl. Uh, very excited for it. Uh, I am as well. Uh, yeah, the, uh, apparently they were like 24 bets in the first half hour of, uh, taking the Eagles, um, at more than $10,000. So that flipped the line almost immediately. Will Brinson. We'll talk to you later.