The big discussion of the NFL world today is the officiating of last night’s football game between the Detroit Lions and the Dallas Cowboys. A crucial mistake at the end of the game helped cost the Lions the win and caused quarterback Jared Goff to change his tune on bad officiating.
“It sucks. It’s unfortunate man. I don’t know if I’ve had this feeling before, where you feel like you won but you didn’t,” said the Lions quarterback after the game, per The Athletic’s Colton Pouncy.
So what was the problem? Multiple Lions offensive linemen approached referee Brad Allen during the game to disguise which of them was the eligible receiver — something that Lions coach Dan Campbell alerted Allen to before kickoff, as is standard procedure. The play was intended to fool the Cowboys defense, but it confused Allen instead, and Detroit was set back by a penalty when the wrong lineman was flagged as an ineligible receiver downfield.
It’s unfortunate, but as New Orleans Saints fans know all too well, the “human element” of the game leads to this kind of heartbreak. And it certainly made an impression on Goff, whose words took a turn from his reflecting on the 2018 NFC championship game.
While appearing on the Pardon My Take podcast, Goff shrugged off Saints fans’ concerns of a missed call in the infamous 2018 conference title game when he was a member of the Los Angeles Rams. On the missed pass interference against his former teammate Nickell Robey-Coleman, Goff scoffed: “No, it wasn’t. Was it called pass interference? I’ve had a million pass interferences that weren’t called. Who says he makes the field goal, too? I know he’s automatic from (that distance), Lutz was, but I don’t know.”
Goff has also gone on the record and said that the Saints “had a chance” to win the game despite that no-call, but his Lions had a chance, too. After losing a two-point conversion to this officiating gaffe they tried again from a further distance, but this time they couldn’t get the job done. Now Goff knows how the over half lives when the referees aren’t doing their jobs.
