NFL Gives Lions a Slap in the Face

In Sundays victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, there was a questionable call. Josh Freeman threw up a blooper to Kellen Winslow in the endzone. Winslow and C.C.Brown got tangled up and as they separated, Winslow caught the touchdown. It was called back for offensive pass interference. Some Lions fans press that it was a good call because Winslow had a hold of Brown and would not let him turn around to see the ball, then pushed off to get the separation. In my opinion, both players were guilty of infractions. Brown never made any attempt to turn to face the ball. Even if he was being held, if he had tried, his head would have at least tried to look behind him. It never did. Yet Winslow did push off and that was an infraction as well.

The NFL has recently sent the Tampa Bay Buccaneers a letter with an official apology for the call, saying that pass interference should never have been called. .... Really!

After the ridiculous debacle in the first week where the Calvin Johnson game winning touchdown was taken away over a terribly interpreted rule, the NFL did not apologize to the Lions. It stood behind its referee's decision. The fact that on the very next play, there was pass interference as Johnson had a player draped all over him didn't matter. There was no apology for that either.

In Philadelphia, Jeremy Maclin blatantly shoved off of the Lions defender to catch a touchdown and no call was made. It was the difference between a win and a loss for the Lions. No apology for that.

In Green Bay when he Lions needed a first down to be in field goal range to tie it up, Woodson was shoving on Calvin Johnson his entire route. After the ball was thrown, he continued to shove on him. As the ball got to him, Woodson was all over Johnson, and no flag was thrown. A penalty would have given the Lions a first down in field goal range. Yet no apology came from the NFL for the refs mistake.

Against the Giants, Gosder Cherilus was called for illegal formation. The TV analysts went over the replay and could not find any infraction whatsoever. In that same game, Shaun Hill was hit low around the knees, forcing him to fall forward and ended up breaking his arm. No flag for a low hit on the quarterback. Again, no apology from the NFL for two big mistakes by the refs.

Against the Cowboys, Ndamukong Suh was called for a horse collar penalty. Everyone but the refs saw him grab the running back by his dreadlocks (which is legal). Replay was shown right away and made it obvious there was no horse collar penalty. The refs converged and came away sticking with the horse collar penalty. No apology from the NFL.

When Chicago came to Detroit, Suh again was flagged with a penalty that never occurred. He was chasing quarterback Jay Cutler from behind and gave him a two handed shove in the back of the pads to knock him down. He could have grabbed him, wrapped him up and drove him to the turf, but he chose to simply shove him down. Replays showed it was a two handed shove and you could even see the open palms of his hands as he hit Cutler in the back of the pads. The refs, however, flagged Suh with unsportsmanlike like conduct for hitting the quarterback in the back of the head with a forearm. Did the NFL send an apology for such a bad call? No, they fined Ndamukong Suh $15,000 even though replay showed he never committed the foul.

Over and over the referees have made blatantly bad calls against the Lions or have ignored penalties against the Lions opponents and yet the NFL has not sent even one letter of apology to the Lions for any one of the mistakes. Instead, it chooses to send a letter of apology to the Buccaneers for a mistake on a questionable and very arguable call. To make it worse, it was the Lions who the NFL has continuously ignored who was the Buccaneers opponent. Almost as if the NFL wanted to make it clear that they will support other teams on questionable calls, but ignore the blatant beating the referees have laid on the Lions multiple times this season.

It has been enough to make me wonder, just what did the Fords do to acquire the wrath of the NFL?