It is hard enough to win in the NFL when everything is equal. Teams are just so good that any mistakes can create upsets. But it’s worse when the officiating seems so skewed that you have to wonder if there is a reason all the poor calls are funneling toward one team.
This was the position the Pittsburgh Steelers found themselves in last week against the Indianapolis Colts.
Head coach Mike Tomlin had this to say about what his message is to his players when frustrated about how games are being officiated:
You’re going to get wrong from time to time, just like the opponent’s going to make a play from time to time. It’s how we respond to it. We still had a lot of opportunity to win that game after that call in particular, I didn’t like that call. I talked to New York yesterday. They didn’t like that call as well, but it doesn’t help me on a Monday, so on Sundays, we better be mentally tough, and we better move on to the next snap and just understand, at times, that’s a component of the game. The officials aren’t perfect; none of us are. We make mistakes in-game that we have to overcome, and if they make a mistake in-game, we better be prepared to overcome that as well. That’s what you learn as an individual and a collective when such instances occur.
Poor officiating has hamstrung the league for a very long time. We’ve never really felt like there was any sort of grand conspiracy but it does appear that some crews struggle more than others when it comes to certain calls.
