Certain things don’t need to be reported. They are anyway.
Yes, the league will be reviewing the various cameras from its stadium-by-stadium Hawkeye camera system to determine whether Bengals receiver Ja’Marr Chase spit on Steelers safety Jalen Ramsey. Yes, a decision whether to suspend Chase will happen today, given that he will have expedited appeal rights in advance of next Sunday’s game against the Patriots.
That’s not reporting. It’s a reflection of the understanding of how the NFL conducts its business on the Monday after a slate of games.
The only question is whether the NFL will follow the new precedent created after Week 1 of the current season and suspend Chase for Week 12.
Before the league’s de facto suspension of Eagles defensive tackle Jalen Carter for spitting on Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott, spitting triggered a fine. With Carter, the league treated Carter’s ejection — which happened before a single play from scrimmage in the opening game of the season — as time served. The NFL then fined him the amount of a game check, matching the financial punishment for a one-game suspension without pay.
The message was sent to all players who may be inclined to show blatant disrespect to another player: Unless spit happens early enough to make the ejection count as missing a game, you will be suspended without pay.
Chase wasn’t ejected on Sunday because, as referee Clete Blakeman said in a pool report after Sunday’s game, none of the officials saw it. Which is understandable. Nothing was happening at the time. There was no reason to have eyes on players who might be inclined to send a loogie in the direction of an opponent.
Because Chase wasn’t ejected, the Jalen Carter precedent points directly to a one-game suspension.
That doesn’t mean the league will do it. They have a habit of making up the rules as they go. They don’t like to be bound by concepts like past practices, because they prefer to make decisions on a case-by-case basis. They make not want to keep a popular and productive player from playing in a key game for both the Bengals and the Patriots, and for the other teams chasing playoff positioning.
Also, Carter didn’t appeal his punishment. Chase — who has said “I didn’t spit on nobody” (which technically counts as an admission that he did spit on somebody) — will surely appeal. What will the randomly-assigned hearing officer do?
The first question is whether the league will exercise its prerogative to suspend Chase. The factual questions are: (1) did Chase spit; and (2) did the spit hit Ramsey? It’s possible that the league will find a way to tiptoe around a suspension by saying there’s no clear evidence that the spit struck Ramsey. (It would be borderline ridiculous to come to that conclusion, but it wouldn’t be the first time the league made a borderline ridiculous interpretation of the available video.)
We’ll find out today whether the league will follow the Jalen Carter precedent. Then, if Chase is suspended, we’ll find out whether the suspension is upheld.
Regardless, the Jalen Carter precedent calls for a suspension of Chase.
The Eagles have only scored 26 points over the last two weeks, but that’s been enough to score wins over the Packers and Lions because of how good they’ve been on defense.
After holding the Packers to seven points in a Week 10 win, they held the Lions to nine points on Sunday night. They stopped five fourth down tries and harassed Lions quarterback Jared Goff into a 14-of-37 night passing the ball. Several of those incompletions were due to batted balls at the line and the Eagles picked up a pair of sacks, including edge rusher Jaelan Phillips’ second in two games with the team.
In his postgame media session, Phillips said the defense is “confident, dominant, game-wrecking” before being asked if he thinks the unit ranks among the best in the league.
“I’d say so. I think we have room to grow, but I think what we’ve been putting on the field so far is domination,” Phillips said. “Keep improving and keep stacking ‘em, keep that relentless energy.”
The trade for Phillips helped the Eagles’ defense level up and it will be bad news for the rest of the league if he’s right about there being better things ahead for the Eagles defense.
After a week spent discussing the Eagles’ offense and his role in it on social media, with reporters and with Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie, wide receiver A.J. Brown was involved early and often in Sunday night’s 16-9 win over the Lions.
Brown was officially targeted 11 times during the game and he picked up seven catches for 49 yards on a night when both team’s defenses reigned supreme. Brown was targeted a 12th time late in the game on a play that drew a controversial pass interference flag on Lions cornerback Rock Ya-Sin and he was asked after the game if he felt like it was the kind of night he had in mind.
“It wasn’t about targets last week or the week before,” Brown said.” It wasn’t about that at all. It was me trying to help and contribute. That’s all. Regardless of what that looked like in phases, I think I did. But, like I said, I think there’s a lot of stuff that we as an offense and me myself, that we gotta continue to get better at.”
Quarterback Jalen Hurts said, via a transcript from the team, that he was “just going with the flow of the game” based on the plays that were being called when he was asked about targeting Brown more often and suggested it might be a better question for offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo as a result. That’s likely to happen this week along with more general questions about how to spark an offense that has scored 26 points over the last two games.
With 1:51 to play on Sunday night in Philadelphia, the Lions had a chance to force an Eagles punt and potentially score a late touchdown, in a 16-9 game.
Detroit made the stop. Until the Men in Black (and White) got involved, flagging Detroit cornerback Rock Ya-Sin for interfering with receiver A.J. Brown. NBC’s Cris Collinsworth pulled no punches, calling the penalty “absolutely terrible.”
After the game, referee Alex Kemp was made available to pool reporter Zach Berman.
“Why the pass interference on that play?” Berman asked.
“The official observed the receiver’s arm getting grabbed and restricting him from going up to make the catch,” Kemp said. “So, the ball was in the air, there was a grab at the arm, restricted him and he called defensive pass interference.”
It’s just the latest example of the pointlessness of pool reports. Rarely, if ever, does the referee say, “We made a mistake.” Instead, they routinely restate the erroneous factual basis for the bad decision made in real time.
While the league may think this counts as transparency, it smacks of propaganda. When a clear error has been made, the only acceptable alternative to admitting the blunder should be to say nothing.
As the Commissioner said in 2012, in the halcyon days of the NFL’s hatred of sports betting, “If gambling is permitted freely on sporting events, normal incidents of the game such as bad snaps, dropped passes, turnovers, penalties, and play calling inevitably will fuel speculation, distrust, and accusations of point-shaving or game-fixing.”
The potential motivation for normal incidents of the game becomes no less abnormal when the official explanation from the referee responsible for the crew that made a mistake says anything other than, “We made a mistake.”
The better approach would be for the league to have a skilled and polished officiating spokesperson who talks to reporters after each weekend of games, who takes any and all questions about officiating decisions from the weekend that was, and who gives candid, accurate, and truthful responses — without regard to whether the officials who made mistakes will be upset that their mistakes were publicly acknowledged.
That’s the only way to counter the knee-jerk reaction that a mistake was something more than a mistake. And it’s a continuing mistake for the NFL to not acknowledge this basic truth and act accordingly.
The Eagles put together a terrific defensive performance against quarterback Jared Goff and the Lions’ offense, with Philadelphia coming away with a 16-9 victory on Sunday Night Football.
Detroit finished an uncharacteristic 3-of-13 on third down and 0-of-5 on fourth down. Four of those conversion attempts were with the offense and another was a failed fake punt.
Quarterback Jared Goff finished 14-of-37 for 255 yards with one touchdown and one interception. His 38 percent completion rate was the worst of his career, coming in lower than his 14-of-32 (43.8 percent) performance in a loss to the Patriots during his rookie year with the Rams.
The last time Goff had a completion rate under 50 percent was with Los Angeles in 2018, when he finished 20-of-44 in a loss to Chicago and then-Bears defensive coordinator Vic Fangio.
Fangio, of course, now holds that same position with the Eagles and helped engineer Sunday night’s strong performance.
On a windy night in Philadelphia, Jake Elliott nailed field goals of 27, 34, and 49 yards. Jalen Hurts had the Eagles’ only touchdown, putting the ball in the box on a tush push late in the second quarter.
The Lions one good drive came in the second quarter, with Jameson Williams taking a catch-and-run 40 yards to the end zone. But when he jumped on the stanchion in celebration, he cost Jake Bates 15 yards on the extra point with an unsportsmanlike conduct foul. Bates missed the extra point wide right.
Philadelphia let Detroit have a late shot. Even with the Lions’ offense sputtering, head coach Nick Sirianni elected to go with a tush push on fourth-and-1 from Philadelphia’s own 29 with 3:00 left in regulation. But with starting center Cam Jurgens out of the game due to injury, Hurts was stuffed for a turnover on downs.
Detroit lost 7 yards on the ensuing possession with a Goff sack, but was still able to narrow the score to 16-9 with Bates’ 54-yard field goal.
Armed with three timeouts, the Lions ostensibly were going to get the ball back on fourth-and-8 when Hurts threw incomplete to A.J. Brown. But Rock Ya-Sin was flagged for a particularly questionable defensive pass interference foul, leading to a first down. The Eagles were able to seal the game with a final 8-yard run by Barkley.
Barkley was a volume shooter on Sunday, gaining 83 yards on 26 carries — a 3.2-yard average. Brown caught seven passes for 49 yards, leading the team in both categories.
On the other side, Jahmyr Gibbs finished with 39 yards on 12 carries but also had five catches for 107 yards. Williams had four catches for 88 yards with a TD.
Now at 8-2 and leading the NFC by virtue of their head-to-head victory over the Rams, the Eagles will be on the road to face the Cowboys in Week 12.
At 6-4, the Lions will host the Giants next Sunday.
