Even though the NFL has sent out a reminder to teams to not criticize officials or other teams, they better be glad the latest team to be blatantly deprived of a chance to win by the refs was Jim Caldwell.
Because the rock-steady coach of the Lions might have been the only one to not flip his switch after that one.
“What can you do?” said a “visibly dazed” Caldwell, according to Drew Sharp of the Detroit Free Press. “You know what I mean? We’re not going to cry about it.”
Others had very different emotions, after the Seahawks were able to seal a 13-10 win over the surging Lions when linebacker K.J. Wright illegally batted a fumble out the back of the end zone, giving the Seahawks the ball instead of the Lions at the 1 with 1:45 left to play.
The league has already admitted it screwed up, with vice president of officiating Dean Blandino saying so after the game on the NFL Network.
And Lions safety James Ihedigbo summed up the feelings of many frustrated by the helplessness.
“You just can’t keep apologizing,” Ihedigbo said. “It’s not going to change it to a win. I mean, it’s just unfortunate. I mean, they got to be held accountable as players are in terms of equipment violations, whatever it might be. There’s a standard that players are held to on the field, there’s a standard that coaches are held to on the field, there’s a standard that teams are held to on the field and there has to be a standard that officials are held to as well. You can’t just apologize.”
At that point, Ihedigbo stopped, saying he didn’t want to risk a fine. But then he kept going.
“They’ve got to do something,” he said. “They’ve got to change the protocol or something. You can’t let that happen and then do nothing.”
Clearly, the Lions feel twice burned after being the victims of a pass interference no-call against the Cowboys in the playoffs. And while they had plenty of the blame themselves for a loss, this instance was even more clear, that a chance to at least tie the game was wrongly taken away.
They should be upset. Every football fan who cares about the integrity of the game should be. Perhaps the league officials in New York will someday join them, and fix a system that clearly needs work.
