Attention NFL teams: It’s apparently open season. Raise all the hell you want about officials.
Given the fact the league sent out a memo to teams early this season cautioning them against publicly complaining about officials, and given the fact the Ravens posted a detailed story on their website this morning publicly complaining about officials, we figured it was worth asking the league its opinion.
“As for the article on the team web site, if you are referring to this story, it’s an analysis of three calls in the game,” NFL spokesman Michael Signora told PFT. “There is no issue here.”
Considering the fact that the article the Ravens published not only questioned the calls, but included some entertaining quotes about the quality thereof — Steve Smith gave them two stars — it seemed a little deeper than “analysis.”
It’s the Ravens’ version of saying they got jobbed last night.
There was an obligatory mention of Joe Flacco’s game-sealing interception, but it was a fairly thorough (roughly 1,000 words worth of thorough) taking apart of the calls, which closed with this passage:
On Monday night, his team also had to battle not only the Cardinals, but those in stripes, too.
“Games in this league are going to be close. They’re going to come down to a play just like that and turn on calls like that, many times,” [head coach John] Harbaugh said. “And you expect them to be consistent and fair. That’s what you ask for. Our guys are just going to have to overcome it. It’s not the first time this year, but it’s OK. We’ve got to be good enough to overcome those things.”
So, the Ravens believe they were playing 11-on-18. They used their team-owned platform to express that opinion.
If that’s not complaining, the league better buckle up. They’ve opened the window now, so they can’t gripe about what might fly through it in the future.