NFL Week 8 – Parity NFL Style: 7 Good Teams, 7 Bad Teams, 18 about.500; Replay Officials Keep Iowa In BCS Hunt
November 2, 2009 by dwil
Indiana head coach Bill Lynch disputes a bad spot in the Hoosiers game against Iowa.
First, kudos to ESPN for their Sunday Outside the Lines segment on Tom Cable. The Oakland Raiders head coach has an obvious history of abuse, toward women and now his assistant coach, Randy Hansen, who claims Cable broke his jaw.
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Next up, boo to ESPN for failing to show the horrific Big Ten replay booth official’s calls during Saturday’s Indiana-Iowa game. On one touchdown the on-field referee called the pass incomplete, but replays clearly showed the Hoosiers receiver caught the ball and was pulling it into his stomach but never lost control of the ball. On the second gross error an Indiana receiver clearly caught a touchdown pass with his right in the end zone before his knee touched out of bounds. The on-field official was no more than 15 feet from the play and ruled it a touchdown. But as Indiana was about to kick the extra point, the replay booth official interceded and stopped play. He then overturned the call of the on-field referee.
Had the booth officials not cheated the Hoosiers out of two TDs they would have been up 35-14 going into the fourth quarter rather than 24-14. The turn of events allowed Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz to hold QB Ricky Stanzi – who threw four third quarter interceptions – to only three fourth quarter pass attempts. The Hawkeyes were not forced to change their game plan, ran the ball, and ran away with a 42-24 win.
However, ESPN began all their Indiana-Iowa game highlights Saturday with the score 24-14, never showing the replay booth errors. CBS, on the other hand, began its highlights with the score 21-7. And each ESPN NCAA commentator mentioned Iowa’s “resilience,” as if highlight show producers fed them all the same line.
Then, to compound the issue, Associated Press reporter, Luke Meredith, only briefly mentioned one of the incidents, again choosing to lead readers to believe the Hawkeyes came back to win without the aid of officials:
The Hoosiers appeared to have answered on a TD grab by Terrance Turner in the corner of the end zone, but the call was overturned by video and Nick Freeland missed a 28-yard field goal.
The game was strange right from the start—perfect these cardiac Hawkeyes on Halloween.
Iowa deferred on the opening kickoff, a rarity under Ferentz, and the Hoosiers marched 69 yards into the wind for a 7-0 lead on Darius Willis’s 4-yard run.
Ryan Donahue, one of the most reliable punters in the nation, shanked an 8-yarder into the stands midway through the second quarter, giving the Hoosiers the ball at the Hawkeyes 35. Five plays later, Chappell found Mitchell Evans for a 16-yard TD pass that made it 14-0.
The Hawkeyes answered on Wegher’s 4-yard TD run with 2:39 left in the first half, but after holding Indiana, Amari Spievey inexplicably picked up a wobbly punt and fumbled it away deep in his own territory. Chappell found Damarlo Belcher for a 9-yard TD with 9 seconds left.
It was a brutal end to the first half for Iowa, and a brutal end to the game for Indiana.
Meredith’s portrayal of the events does not begin to touch on the how deeply the two calls altered the outcome of the game.
Even Indianapolis Star writer, Terry Hutchens, stopped short of scalding the replay booth officials:
Several calls clearly didn’t go IU’s way. Referee Ron Torbert appeared to spend as much time communicating with the officials in the review booth as he did officiating the game. Five calls were reviewed, with the Hoosiers coming out on the short end of four, two of them on would-be touchdowns.
On two occasions, Chappell appeared to throw touchdown passes to wide receiver Terrance Turner. On the first, the official said Turner did not get a foot down and maintain control of the ball. On the second, the official said Turner made the reception for the touchdown, but a booth review overturned the ruling, despite questionable video evidence to the contrary.
When the first one was ruled no touchdown, IU still scored a TD on the next play when Chappell hit Belcher on a 9-yard pass to make it 21-7 with nine seconds remaining in the half.
The touchdown that was overturned was particularly costly, however, when Nick Freeland missed a 28-yard field goal on the next play.
Had number four-ranked Iowa lost, the Big Ten would have no teams within reach of a BCS Bowl game for the first time since the system’s inception. However, the Big Ten conference winner would probably be granted a Rose Bowl berth, which is a BCS game, over a more deserving school. The ensuing wails of disapproval of placing an inferior Big Ten team in a BCS game would have surely landed the BCS schools in front of Congress and perhaps in court.
Instead, it appears the NCAA will get away with its cheating ways unscathed yet again.
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Onto the NFL…
Carolina 34 (3-4), Arizona (4-3) 21. Arizona blew a chance to gain a two-game stranglehold on the NFC West by failing to understand that Carolina wanted revenge for last season’s playoff defeat at the hands of the Cardinals.
Dallas (5-2) 38, Seattle (2-5) 17. The Cowboys are hitting their stride. Seattle is just getting hit.
Baltimore (4-3) 30, Denver (6-1) 7. Ahhhh, back to earth for the Broncos.
Houston (5-3) 31, Buffalo (3-5) 10. T.O. can no longer say the Bills are only a couple of plays away from being undefeated.
Chicago (4-3) 30, Cleveland (1-7) 6. Derek Anderson went 6-17 for 76 yards and two INTs for a QB rating of a whopping 10.5.
St. Louis (1-7) 17, Detroit (1-6) 10. The Rams had Stephen Jackson and the Lions did not.
Indianapolis (7-0) 18, San Francisco (3-4) 14. If this game is played on grass the Niners win. The Colts’ was the most turf-aided defensive performance in recent memory.
Miami (3-4) 30, New York Jets (4-4) 25. After the game Rex Ryan said his team outplayed the Dolphins. And Bush League Bart Scott sardonically said Miami was “loaded across the board.” Look fellas, Miami swept you. Give the team their props and move on. As it stands, you look like chumps. And maybe that’s why you can’t win even when your rookie QB doesn’t make critical mistakes.
Philadelphia (5-2) 40, New York Giants (5-3) 17. With their injuries on defense catching up to them and with the loss of Plaxico Burress becoming more and more apparent, the G-Men are in trouble. And to think just last week people were complaining about bad how the Eagles looked, even though they won. Now they hand a 40-Burger on the Giants and with Dallas, look like the class of the NFC East.
San Diego (4-3) 24, Oakland (2-6) 16. The Chargers visibly took their foot off the gas against Oakland but still had enough in reserve to stop JaMarcus Russell from mounting a late-game comeback at their expense.
Tennessee (1-6) 30, Jacksonville (3-4) 17. Vince Young can do so much more than Kerry Collins.
Minnesota 38, Green Bay 26. The Packers offensive line is going to let Aaron Rodgers get killed this season, if they’re not careful. And —- how about that Fav-ray fella! and how about Adrian Peterson and the Vikings wideouts, and the Minnesota defense.
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Monday Night
New Orleans at Atlanta. Matt Ryan pulls up the Falcons express into The Big Easy. Unless Atlanta’s defense carries the evening, it’s going to be a long night for Atlanta.
I am Georgia Tech fan (Tech is #10 in the BCS) and was watching the INDIANA-IOWA game, hoping to see Inidana pull off the upset, and the referees and replay folks did everything in their power to GIVE IOWA THAT GAME. This was one of the worst officiated games ever! I have seen some poorly refereed games, but this was so blatantly obvious. The replay folks were reversing TDs and just making some really strange decisions.
IOWA is NOT a Top 10 team. They have a good defense, but this home-cooking by the replay folks should face more national scrutiny.
Watch out for Carolina. They have two dominate RBs in DeAngelo Williams and Johnathon Stewart and a solid defense. Delohmme had een given away games early, but apparently he has played better and overall the team is positioning themselves to compete for a wild-card berth.
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I am a Mike Singletary fan and want San Fran to do well, but trying to win in Indy was going to be tough. However, it is great to see the emergence of Vernon Davis as Pro-Bowl calibur player at TE. Yet Singletary still has a QB problem. There had been stories earlier in the summer about Singletary being interested in Vick, but the media had put pressure on San Francisco to stay away and imply Shaun Hill, a career journeyman and Alex Smith, a first-round bust were better than the three-time pro Pro-bowler Michael Vick.
Today’s game sort of accentuates why Alex Smith and Shaun Hill will have a difficult getting to the playoffs. These guys aren’t capable of making enough positive plays to win games. When things break down, they can’t move effectively out of the pocket to avoid pressure and make plays to sustain offensive drives, especially at crunch time. Alex Smith look good early in throwing TD passes to Vernon Davis, but got shut down in the second half and look a little helpless out there. SF’s defense kept Peyton out of the end zone, but if they had a more mobile QB who can help sustain drives, they would have a better chance to win a game like that.
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I was rooting for Green Bay to beat Minnesota, but I notice that Green Bay’s Ryan Grant hasn’t been that same explosive back that I had remembered from two years ago. His best games this year were against defensively challenged Cleveland and St. Louis, other than that he has been rather pedestrian. Against Minnesota, he carried the ball ten times for 30 yards. Not good. Green Bay must get better production from Ryan Grant to challenge for a wild card spot.
Baltimore looked good against the Broncos. I hate the Broncos, but I might just start having to give their D some respect. The Baltimore offense didn’t break them down until late in the game, just wore them down in the end. The officials still give the Broncos some weak ass penalties in their favor. All a Bronco WR has to do is complain about an imaginary PI and a flag comes in… 5 seconds late and from the other side of the field (Brandon Marshall, first half). I don’t know why the officials have all this donkey love, but damn…
To respond to Patrick, Vick is in a better situation this year. You think he was going to be ready to ball and have a team rely on him to win a few months out of jail? Eagles picking him up, giving him 3 plays a game and not relying on him to do much is the perfect situation for him. Next year, they’re not going to pick up his 5 mil option, and he’ll now be in football shape for some QB needy team to take a shot at.
I always like to point out that Eli is a fraud. A 95 million dollar fraud. Cashing in on the family name, cashing in on his D-Lines efforts and an awesome once in a lifetime play where the reciever was responsible for at least 75% of the success of it. Eagles whooped that ass, and that was no horse collar tackle. Announcers were saying ‘Why even hit him, he was running towards the out of bounds’. I don’t know if they were calling out the NFL for its ridiculous protection of QB’s, that you can’t even hit them, or if they were serious…
Now to the Chargers/Raiders…. SD is blocking better last 2 wks and RB’s are getting some holes. Unfortunately KC and Oak barely qualify as real run defenses. Also, this is the second week that Sproles has been hit with a chop block penalty. On the replay he tapped the shoulder of the D-linemen while the lineman was face down on the ground. Sproles was running into the flats and the tap got a 15 yd penalty… This also happened against the Ravens when he picked up a blitzer and hit the guy in the midsection, and the dude wasn’t engaged. It seems to me that the Chargers and especially Sproles have to operate under some modified chop block rules, such as he’s not allowed to block, and Rivers is supposed to get killed. Only high profile QB in the league that the NFL doesn’t seem to go out of their way to protect. I wish my QB’s name was Manning, then we’d get phantom PI’s and refs would protect him from being hit.
That Indiana call was one of the worst I have ever seen.
And yeah, Aaron Rogers is going to get killed out there. He’s gonna have to start throwing the ball away and avoiding at least some of those shots.
I’m glad some people saw the Iowa-IU game, or at least some of the highlights (there were two awful calls on TDs and a couple more, as the above photo w/ the story shows). The favoritism was so blatant, and the goal so obvious, that there should be a national outcry in the press for an investigation into the actions of the official in the replay booth.
The bad calls aren’t new for IU’s Bill Lynch. Remember that he should also have a win against Michigan in the Big House this year, but got screwed out of that when an interception was reversed incorrectly.
Iowa won’t get BCS Title Game run unless some serious collapsing goes on in the rankings above them, but they’re the favorite to get destroyed by Oregon in the Rose Bowl. However, they do have to go into Columbus to play Ohio State, and I doubt the favoritism extends to upstarts playing against the conference’s favorite sweater vest.
Being a Bears fan, I obviously rooted for the Vikes (wtf?). The Pack have some decent players, but they’re just not complete. They had an overstock on the Fa-Vor milkshake post game…
Figured Baltimore would be ready after the bye. CBS did a break-down on Orton’s passing style (short passes) and might have gotten exposed…
Ouch@the G-Men…
The Titans FINALLY showed up in week 8…
Didn’t catch much of the IU/Iowa game. Still glaring at UofTN’s black jerseys/GA’s black helmuts…
Will look forward to MNF…
gmp,
The officials in the Ravens-Broncos game were garbage. ‘Nuff said. The Ravens won because they controlled the line of scrimmage on both sides. The D clearly played it’s best game of the season and Joe Flacco is one of the best young QB’s in the game. If Kelley Washington is smart, he’ll never leave Baltimore.
The Jets can’t lose enough for my satisfaction. I have great respect for Rex Ryan and what he did for the Raven D, but he’s his father’s son; all sizzle, no steak. Bart Scott lost me when he threw the official’s flag in the New England game two years ago. Good player, big mouth, bad sport.
Hooray for Vince Young.
@ Patrick: If you saw Vernon Davis play at Maryland, it was obvious he was a star, he just needed an offense to to max out his skills. A Michael Vick without the rust, he’d be an All-Pro.
Patrick-
Lots of responses to you your comment – and here’s another. Alex Smith played under Urban Meyer and ran the spread. and it wasn’t a Chris Leak situation, where Meyer inherited Leak. Smith can move.
Did anyone see the Packers lie down against the Vikings? WTF is all that Fav-ray love from guys like Al Harris????
If I was Aaron Rodgers after this season I’d ask to be traded…. This guy has been sacked 14 times in two games alone – against GB! And all Rodgers has done is say all the right things in the press when he could be throwing the offensive coordinator (if he chose), his line, the defense, and Ryan Grant under the bus with good cause.
How do you watch your QB get smacked around like that and have zero sacks, only hit the opposing QB five times in two games?!
dwil-
About the Rodgers situation… I dunno, that poor fool is on his ass a lot. All I know is I’m very happy that the Chiefs sent Jared Allen out of the conference. Rodgers has to hate Allen by now… and his LT.
To complete the thought, is there any team with a more complete set of lines than the Vikings? Their O-line is pretty complete and their D-line with the Williams’ and Allen is pretty damn tough as well. Proves that adage about games being won in the trenches.
Maybe it’s my anti-Favre bias speaking, but I’m still not buying into the Vikings being favourites to win the superbowl. They might be the best in the NFC but there are too many well balanced teams in the AFC that could match up nicely with them. Not to mention we still might see Favre implode as the season gets older, and the bad weather rolls in.
monsoon-
With all the power in the AFC, it will be a task for any NFC team to with the SB, let alone the Vikings….
And even if they do make it, give a defensive mind like Jm Caldwell, or Belichick, or Mike Tomlin two weeks of prep time to figure out the Fav-ray!
This is one pissed-off Eagles fan checking in today. I go out of town for the weekend so of course I set my DVR for the Giants-Eagles division tussle. Of course, I come back home today to watch what the highlight shows let me know was the utter domination of the hated Giants by the Eagles and the damned thing reset itself over the weekend so nothing, not even an errant pass was recorded. I’m so fukkin’ mad right now I could bawl on the floor like a three year old brat.
If anyone knows how I can see the game let me know. This Eagle’s fan would appreciate it.
Harvey,
If you have the NFL network, there is a good chance they will replay the whole game sans time between plays starting on Tuesday.
CableVision is my provider so I’m not going to see it that way. Going to Eagles’ board to see if someone has it online for me.
Thanks though.