Exactly How The Refs Cost Denver The Game

[Cugel]

There's been a lot of complaining about the scab refs blowing endless numbers of calls, and of course they didn't get much right last night.

But, ONE call in particular totally destroyed the Broncos chances to win, and the call was totally incomprehensible. I'm referring of course to the Knowshon fumble.

To recap the play and how it directly affected the outcome of the game (http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/2012091700/2012/REG2/broncos@falcons#menu=drivechart&tab=analyze&analyze=playbyplay):

The score is 10-0 after the Falcons picked off Manning 3 times. The Falcons and Broncos have just exchanged punts and the Broncos get the ball back with 1:03 left in the 1st quarter at their own 43 yard line. McGahee runs twice and gets a first down on the Atlanta 45 yard line.

The Broncos need only about 15 yards for a FG. They bring in Knowshon. He fumbles at the Atlanta 41. The ball rolls forward to the 35 yard line where it is fallen on by 1 Atlanta player, plus Decker and Orlando Franklin.

At this point, the Ref pulls Decker off the ball, Franklin's helmet is ripped off but he comes out of the pile holding the ball. Denver recovers for a first down at the Atlanta 32 yard line!

But, WAIT! The imbecilic ref for some inscrutable reason yells out "Red ball!" They award the ball to the Falcons! Matt Ryan comes out and leads them down the field to kick a 42 yard FG and go up 13-0.

Here's the official transcript of the play:


(:13) (Shotgun) 27-K.Moreno right end to ATL 41 for 4 yards (54-S.Nicholas). FUMBLES (54-S.Nicholas), RECOVERED by ATL-56-S.Weatherspoon at ATL 32. PENALTY on ATL-93-R.Edwards, Unnecessary Roughness, 15 yards, enforced at ATL 32.

Now think how this ONE blown call impacts the game! The Broncos were already in FG range at the Falcons 32 (47 yard FG attempt even if they don't gain one more yard and it's first down).

Instead of 13-0, it's 10-3. Then after the Broncos go 3 and out and the Falcons score a TD by Tony Gonzalez on their next possession, the Broncos get the ball back.

But, instead of 20-0, its 17-3, so when Manning drives from the Denver 20 to score a TD throw to D.T. at the end of the half, the score at halftime is 17-10. Of course, Manning might have thrown a TD on the previous drive so that the score at halftime would have been 17-14, but a FG is almost certain.

A completely DIFFERENT GAME! The Broncos turn the ball over 4 times in the first quarter, but only trail by 7 at halftime? Devastating to the Falcons!

Add the Falcons TD pass to Roddy White with 7:23 left in the 3rd the Falcons go up 24-10 instead of 27-7.

IN the 4th quarter, Manning executes two drives resulting in TD runs by McGahee TYING THE SCORE!

At this point, the Falcons get the ball back with 3:24 left in regulation and a tie score. Do they even dare to throw the ball on 3rd and 5 at their own 20 with a tie score instead of being up by 6?

Because if they run the ball, even if they don't pick up the first down, they can run it down to the 2 minute warning and force Manning to go 50 yards with no time outs to have a chance at the winning FG.

But, assuming they do make the first down by throwing it, as they did do, that just gives them a 1st down at their own 31 yard line, with 2:00 minutes left. They still have to drive another 40 yards to be in reasonable FG range.

By no means certain the Broncos can't stop them from moving down the field and kicking the winning FG, which would mean overtime!

And who knows what would happen in overtime?

All this does not prove that the Broncos would have WON if not for that particular blown call, but it does prove that they LOST because of it! That 4th turnover was devastating, just when they were really moving the ball.

True, you can blame Know-show for screwing up, and I agree! He should have been cut during training camp IMO!

Two big fumbles in 2 games? Get rid of him and go with McGahee, Ball and Hillman. At the very worst, he should DEFINITELY be the man cut when Virgil Green comes off suspension after week 4, and should be inactive for the next 2 games!

But, even with the inexcusable Know-show fumble, the Broncos would still have had a chance to win, except for the incomprehensible refs blunder in awarding the ball to Atlanta! :mad:

[cmc0605]

Good summary.



Instead of 13-0, it's 10-3. Then after the Broncos go 3 and out and the Falcons score a TD by Tony Gonzalez on their next possession, the Broncos get the ball back.



And this is assuming they keep the drive alive after that phantom pass interference call on Carter. I'd also point out that the d holding against champ bailey was a bad call, since you cannot hold a WR when the QB is out of the pocket.

Of course, some bad calls helped us out too, like a free 5 yards leading to a Thomas touchdown. I do think we got the worse end of it though.

To be sure, the 3 picks hurt us quite a bit and Atlanta played a great game. We just looked sloppy until the 4th quarter. But you're right, it could have been a different game.

[threefolddead]

How about the blown pass interference call on carter that was on third down. If we stopped them there as we should have thats seven points off the board... We win that game.

[jhildebrand]

Offense can't advance the ball on a fumble. But the refs would have donkey screwed that, too.

[CrazyHorse]

I blame the refs for getting the fumble call wrong. You can't blame them for Manning's 3 interceptions though.

[Ziggy]

Yeah the refs were bad, but 4 turnovers in the first quarter on the road cost the Broncos the game.

[Denver Native (Carol)]

Yeah the refs were bad, but 4 turnovers in the first quarter on the road cost the Broncos the game.

I don't agree with this. The 3 blown calls by the refs as outlined by Cugel, if I remember correctly, led to Atlanta points. Without those blown calls, we would have overcome the 4 turnovers.

[MOtorboat]

Offense can't advance the ball on a fumble. But the refs would have donkey screwed that, too.

It wasn't fourth down and it wasn't inside two minutes, so, Denver should have had the ball at the spot of recovery.

[Army Bronco]

Yeah the refs were bad, but 4 turnovers in the first quarter on the road cost the Broncos the game.

I don't agree with this. The 3 blown calls by the refs as outlined by Cugel, if I remember correctly, led to Atlanta points. Without those blown calls, we would have overcome the 4 turnovers. without those blown calls it would have been 3 turnovers.

[shank]

without those blown calls it would have been 3 turnovers.

and a win

[bcbronc]

I dunno, the zebra that actually made the call was actually IN the pile. I know Franklin came away with the ball, but the ref was in the pile and must have seen the ATL player with possession, and he made the call. The rule isn't whoever has it last gets to keep it.

There were a ton of terrible calls last night, and it looked to me like we recovered the ball. But I'm willing to concede that the guy in stripes standing knee deep in the pile probably had the best view.

Either way, I'm not going to make excuses for Peyton. He doesn't need them. He shit the bed with three terrible INTs, and that's what cost us the game. Moreno's fumble didn't help, either did the reffing. But c'mon, a QB throws three picks in the 1st quarter and has a handful of 3 and outs on top of that, and you don't really need to colour code a 1000 word essay to figure out where the blame lies.

This L is on Manning. No big whoop, I'm sure he'll more than make up for it before the seasons through.

[ATLbroNCO]

The fact of the matter is that that fumble really took the air out of the Broncos as a whole. If that drive continues, the defense gets more rest, the team is more confident, etc, etc. Just a really bad time for the refs to miss a call so pivotal. The Broncos lost, and I'm cool with that, but its time Goddell meets with the owners and says enough is enough... The games are getting more and more dangerous for the players. The last thing that we need is to lose an essential player because the referees cannot control how the game is going.
The sooner these guys are gone the better!

[Cugel]

I dunno, the zebra that actually made the call was actually IN the pile. I know Franklin came away with the ball, but the ref was in the pile and must have seen the ATL player with possession, and he made the call. The rule isn't whoever has it last gets to keep it.

There were a ton of terrible calls last night, and it looked to me like we recovered the ball. But I'm willing to concede that the guy in stripes standing knee deep in the pile probably had the best view.

Either way, I'm not going to make excuses for Peyton. He doesn't need them. He shit the bed with three terrible INTs, and that's what cost us the game. Moreno's fumble didn't help, either did the reffing. But c'mon, a QB throws three picks in the 1st quarter and has a handful of 3 and outs on top of that, and you don't really need to colour code a 1000 word essay to figure out where the blame lies.

This L is on Manning. No big whoop, I'm sure he'll more than make up for it before the seasons through.

If you look at the replay of that game you will see that two Broncos -- Orlando Franklin, and Eric Decker together with Atlanta safety Tim Weatherspoon are diving for the ball. Decker has it initially and Weatherspoon is trying to strip it. There's a scrum and the ref pulls Decker out of the pile. Franklin's helmet is torn off but he manages to wrestle the ball away from Weatherspoon and emerges from the pile with the ball clearly in his possession.

NORMAL refs would wait to see who emerges with the ball when they strip off the pile, but this ref runs in and yells "Red ball!" before that.

In short there's absolutely NO basis for that blown call. At what point does one player possess the ball when two men are fighting over it at the bottom of a pile?

Answer: When one guy gets up with the ball, that's when. It's not a huge surprise that Orlando Franklin manages to wrestle the ball away from a safety. He weighs 100 pounds more than Weatherspoon.

If you're an average sized man like say 180 and you get into a wrestling match on the ground for a football with a 280 lbs defensive lineman who do you think would win? Well it's the same size differential between an OT and a S. Franklin is just huge and immensely strong compared to a safety.

[Cugel]

Quote Originally Posted by Ziggy View Post
Yeah the refs were bad, but 4 turnovers in the first quarter on the road cost the Broncos the game.

Obviously, without the 4 turnovers the Broncos would have won, because Atlanta scored 13 points off the turnovers and only won by 5 points 26-21!

But, the point I'm making is that that ONE blown call cost the Broncos a chance to win -- NOT that they WOULD inevitably have won. There's a difference. The title of this thread was carefully chosen "chance to win" not "would have won."

Yes, there were a lot of OTHER blown calls, some of which helped Denver. For instance the idiot refs advanced the ball by 6 yards on Denver's last drive by mis-spotting the ball. And the interference penalties against Tony Carter on their TD drive and against Champ Bailey were clearly wrong too.

Would Demaryius Thomas have scored a TD before halftime without those six extra yards?

WHO KNOWS?

You cannot go back in time and prove that without some blown calls the Broncos would have won. The ONLY time in football where you can actually do that is on a last second play where they call a penalty on a successful FG or something.

What you CAN say is that "without that ONE blown call the Broncos would have had a chance to win the game."

Remember Atlanta might still have moved the ball 40 yards from their own 31 with 2 minutes to go to get into FG range at the end of the game and kick the winning FG as time expired.

We can't say they WOULDN'T win anyway, but we can say Denver was deprived of a chance to win by the refs on that ONE play!

[BroncoJoe]

Can we ban yellow as a font color? Seriously. There are people at work who use the white background. We aren't Pittsburgh fans!

USE ORANGE!

[Mike]

I dunno, the zebra that actually made the call was actually IN the pile. I know Franklin came away with the ball, but the ref was in the pile and must have seen the ATL player with possession, and he made the call. The rule isn't whoever has it last gets to keep it.

There were a ton of terrible calls last night, and it looked to me like we recovered the ball. But I'm willing to concede that the guy in stripes standing knee deep in the pile probably had the best view.

Either way, I'm not going to make excuses for Peyton. He doesn't need them. He shit the bed with three terrible INTs, and that's what cost us the game. Moreno's fumble didn't help, either did the reffing. But c'mon, a QB throws three picks in the 1st quarter and has a handful of 3 and outs on top of that, and you don't really need to colour code a 1000 word essay to figure out where the blame lies.

This L is on Manning. No big whoop, I'm sure he'll more than make up for it before the seasons through.

Explain them calling red ball...before they unassed the pile then. I clearly heard it said by the refs.

I will not say the refs cost the Broncos the game, because you never know what happens as the result of another. However, the referees making horseshit calls, stopping the game for minutes after plays, disrupting the flow of the game, and not knowing their jobs is unacceptable. They will cost someone a chance at the playoffs. Goodell needs to get his dumbass back to the table and get a deal done with the real refs.

[jhildebrand]

NORMAL refs would wait to see who emerges with the ball when they strip off the pile, but this ref runs in and yells "Red ball!" before that.
.

That isnt true. I can recall several times when a fumble was rewarded to a team and the opposing team came out of the pile with the ball.

Was the officiating atrocius? Yes. Can this team blame the loss directly on the officiating? No. 3 INTs is 3 INTS. The fumble too.

[weazel]

I wont blame the ref's for Moreno's fumble... I think I will blame Moreno.

We lost the game for turning the ball over 4 times, thats not on the ref's.

[Cugel]

That isnt true. I can recall several times when a fumble was rewarded to a team and the opposing team came out of the pile with the ball.

Was the officiating atrocius? Yes. Can this team blame the loss directly on the officiating? No. 3 INTs is 3 INTS. The fumble too.

That could happen if one guy fell on the ball and then a bunch of guys piled on him and eventually they ripped the ball away from him at the bottom of the pile.

But, what basis was there to conclude that Atlanta had the ball when both guys had their hands on it and were wrestling with each other to grab the ball on the ground?

There's just a scrum of bodies and nobody really has possession until somebody proves they have it by grabbing and holding onto the ball and getting up from the pile with the ball.

That is why refs normally wait to unpile the players and see who has the ball BEFORE they make the call.

They didn't do that in this case. They rushed in and make a quick call. Just a blown call.

And they did it because they lack experience and were intimidated by the speed of the game and all the players rushing around and were in too great of a hurry to make the call.

It's just a bad call due to inexperience and not knowing how to call an NFL game. And that wasn't one of the times when the head referee upstairs in the booth could bail them out by getting the call right.

[arapaho2]

well certainly that call wasnt right ..former head refereee mike piera tweeted it

but im not gonna say they cost us the game...carters ghost PI on 3rd down was terrible....the defnese had them stopped...bad call they continue down to score

but also on the fumble...during the meladrama a falcons player was upset and swinging his arms and hit the ref in the head knocking his cap off...he drew a flag ....but touch a ref is supposed to be autonatic ejection...remember stokely the other year

also keep in mind when we are looking for reasons...porter and moore both dropped its that would have been sure scores

[vandammage13]

Please...

I'm not so ignorant as to say that the current refs are just as good as the real ones, but the amount of criticism they are getting is a little over the top.

There are plenty of games EVERY week where the real refs blow easy calls...

Its like when John Fox was absolutely IRATE over the 12 men call (looking like he was about to have a heart attack), when in fact, there were 12 men...It was just a little over the top...These guys are getting shafted even when its the correct call...They will never get the benefit of the doubt.

The only reason the refs are this big of a deal is because they are under a microscope...every single call is analyzed and over-analyzed moreso than it would be with normal refs.

I don't think they are great, don't get me wrong...I would much rather have the regular refs in there, but I don't think things are nearly as bad with them as they are made out to be.

To the OP: The Refs did not cost us the game...Our first quarter debacle did.