Detroit Lions at New Orleans Saints Retrospective

I have a thing about justice.

I want things to be right. I want things to be fair. I want the playing field to be level. I want people to get what they deserve. When I hear about a story or a news event without a clear right or wrong, I consume all the information about it I can; I have to know what I think is right.

Yesterday I sat down with my third cup of coffee (more or less (more)) and put my hands on the keyboard. My thoughts weren’t ready yet. Perhaps it was the short turnaround from Sunday Night Football to Monday morning, but the events of the Saints game had yet to percolate through my mind. With nothing but the title typed, I stopped “writing.”

Last night I didn’t go near the computer. I didn’t write a word. I let my thoughts brew slowly. I let frustration and disappointment dilute in the liquid heat of my id while I played some FIFA and ate pancakes. Eventually, I found the words to “Justice” on my lips. This morning, I went to the coffee pot and found that overnight my post had brewed.

The way fans talk about football with each other is a shadow of the way players talk smack on the field. As I said last week in response to a post on Cheesehead TV, it’s part of the illusion of fandom. We brand ourselves with their brand, we wrap our identity up in theirs, we take their successes and failures to heart, and others project their successes and failures onto us.

Complaining about the refs is for losers. It’s what happens when loser fans watch their loser teams lose. Winners know the better team usually wins. Why do you think Vegas sets a betting line? In the NFL, any fan can pick straight winners far more often than not. When upsets happen, it’s because the “worse” team showed up and played better on that day.

The Saints are better than the Lions; there’s no doubt about it. They’re undefeated at home. They went up to Lambeau in Week 1 and were a yard and/or bad playcall from taking the Packers to overtime. By SRS, they’re the second-best team in the NFC, and fourth-best team in the NFL. As the Watchtower showed, they’re scoring a little more, and allowing a little less, than the Lions.

The game’s stats reflect that exactly. The Lions gained 408 yards passing on 44 attempts; that’s an awesome 9.27 YpA. The Saints, though, threw for 342 on 36 attempts, a slightly-better 9.50. The Lions did okay on the ground, getting 87 yards on 22 carries (3.95 YpC). The Saints were a little better; 100 on 23 (4.35 YpC). The Lions were sacked 3 times for The Lions turned it over once, but only after the game was all but in the books. As I said in the Watchtower:

The Saints are like the mini-Packers, and the Lions are like the mini-Saints. These two teams hold up a mirror to one another, and the Saints are a little bit better in every phase of the game—except the Lions play much, much better pass defense. I could see this going either way.

So what turned my projected 30-28 Lions win into a 31-17 Lions loss? Well, the Lions had one field goal blocked, and missed another—getting zero points from two good drives. But that only makes it 31-23. Where’d that other touchdown go?

Oh, right: the Lions were flagged 11 times for -107 yards, and the Saints were flagged 3 times for –30 yards. The penalty differential was exactly one scoring drive.

It isn’t that the Lions didn’t commit these infractions; they did. But as with last week, the problem is consistency. Offensive and defensive holding, and offensive and defensive pass interference, are subjective calls. Much like charging and blocking in basketball, there are technical definitions but enforcement is done by “feel.”

When Nate Burleson is flagged three times for offensive pass interference—as Pride of Detroit user “NobodySpecial” pointed out, that’s as much as any offensive player in the NFL had been tagged with OPI all season long—the game “feels” rigged.
I mean, here’s the SaintsNation Saints blog:

In my entire life of watching football I've never seen an offensive player get flagged 3 times for the same penalty in a game, especially something rare like offensive pass intereference. That goes back to the poor discipline, but it's also just weird.

I don't believe the referees were being controlled by Vegas, mobsters, Roger Goodell, or any other outside force determined to make sure the Lions lose. But it’s impossible to claim with a straight face that the Lions are being officiated the same way other teams are. For instance: pushing a hand into another player’s face is a penalty, except when it’s a ball carrier stiff-arming a defender . . . unless that ball carrier is a Detroit Lion, then it’s a penalty again.

My personal belief is that the league and/or officials are trying to send a message to the Lions. Now that they’re a “dirty team,” the Lions not only have to play as clean as everyone else, they have to play cleaner. They’re going to get flagged for things no other team gets flagged for. Rough stuff from the other side is going to go unpunished. The league is sending a message to the Lions, and it’s up to them to listen.

For once, the one-way street of fandom cuts both ways: on Sunday, the Lions were just as furious as fans were. They were feeling just as confused, just as upset, just as impotent as everyone hollering at their TVs. They were playing the game just as well and just as clean as the Saints, but the refs were taking the results away from them. It’s not fair. It’s not right. It’s unjust.

Civil disobedience isn’t a choice here; the Lions cannot #OccupyTheNFL. There are two possible responses: have a tantrum, or grow up. Remember when Gosder Cherilus was our resident hothead? He of all people should be the first to jump in and make a stupid play after the whistle—but he got it. He gets it. He lets it roll off his back. The Lions are going to have to learn to do the same.

The great thing is, the Lions are talented enough to do it. They can win playing clean. They can win playing cleaner. They can beat the Vikings, Raiders, and Chargers with one hand tied behind their back—and that’s good, because they’ll have to.

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“Touch Down”: Lions Should Be 1-0

Chris Spielman once scored a touchdown for the Lions.  When he got into the end zone, he got both knees on the ground, and touched the ball to the turf—just as, many years ago, was required for a “touch down” to be scored.  He did it to pay his respects to the men who played the game sixty, seventy, eighty years ago—before multiple referees and a panoply of high-speed HD digital cameras continuously observed every square inch of the field.  Apparently, this is the standard we need to return to.

It's been beat to death by now.  The fires of my rage—not easily stoked—have cooled down.  Injustice has been done; the Lions had their game-winning touchdown against the Bears wiped off the books by a bad call.  As infuriating as it is, it is—and we either have to deal with it, process it, and move on, or seriously question our faith in the entity that rules the sport, and team, we love.

As The Big Lead and Pro Football Talk both explained very well, NFL officials incorrectly—or at best, zealously—applied one clause in the rule book, while steadfastly ignoring another.  The result is that the Lions lost what would have been a tremendous season-opening road win, and started back down the path to an 0-and-who-knows-how-many losing streak.

First, let's talk about what a catch is.  Per the NFL rule book:

Article 3. Completed or Intercepted Pass. A player who makes a catch may advance the ball. A forward pass is complete (by the offense) or intercepted (by the defense) if a player, who is inbounds:

(a) secures control of the ball in his hands or arms prior to the ball touching the ground; and (b) touches the ground inbounds with both feet or with any part of his body other than his hands.

If the player loses the ball while simultaneously touching both feet or any part of his body other than his hands to the ground, or if there is any doubt that the acts were simultaneous, it is not a catch.

The clause that was applied was the “going to the ground” clause:

Item 1: Player Going to the Ground.  If a player goes to the ground in the act of catching a pass (with or without contact by an opponent), he must maintain control of the ball after he touches the ground, whether in the field of play or the end zone. If he loses control of the ball, and the ball touches the ground before he regains control, the pass is incomplete. If he regains control prior to the ball touching the ground, the pass is complete.

It’s long been the rule that if a player catches the ball in midair, and lands on the ground, and the ball popped out, then it’s not a catch.  Picture a receiver with the ball cradled loosely in his arms, and then it popping out when he hits the turf—clearly, he never had possession.  If he didn’t have it secured enough to withstand hitting the ground, then he didn’t really have it at all.

But Calvin Johnson DID “maintain control of the ball after he touche[d] the ground.”  He caught the ball with his hands, landed with two feet, his knee hit, his butt hit, his other hand hit (possibly out of bounds, ending the play there if it already wasn’t over), and then Johnson touched the ball to the ground, and it popped out.  If that play occurs outside the endzone, he’s down by contact before the ball pops out.  But it wasn’t outside the end zone, he was in it.  That rule goes like this:

Item 3: End Zone Catches. If a player catches the ball while in the end zone, both feet must be completely on the ground before losing possession, or the pass is incomplete.

So we have several competing, conflicting standards in the rule book.  What we don’t have is any of the nonsense being spouted by Mike Pereira, former NFL Director of Officiating, and VP  of Officiating, and current FOX Sports analyst.  All the stuff we heard during the game, about “completing the process” isn’t in the rule rook.  Here’s his article on it for Fox:

Here's why: Rule 8, Section 1, Article 4.

A play from start to finish is a process. When you go to the ground, even after you've caught the ball, you have to maintain possession.

The rule states: If a player goes to the ground . . .

See what he did there?  He cited Rule 8, Section 1, Article 4, and then slipped in his own analysis.  The standards of a “complete process,” or of needing to complete a “second football act,” are not in the rule book, and should not be applied.  Calvin Johnson needed to maintain possession after he touched the ground, and he did that.  By rule, the play was a touchdown—and it was correctly signalled so by the side judge.

Mike Florio conducted a thought experiment that’s sure to illuminate (and infuriate):

Let's look at it this way. If Johnson's catch had occurred at the one, and if while swinging his arm to the ground he would have broken the plane of the goal line, the proper call under the "second act" exception would have been touchdown. And that's the heart of the problem. In an effort to take some of the perceived and/or actual unfairness out of a rule that takes away a catch that viscerally looks like a catch, the league has crafted an exception that isn't in the rule book, and that therefore doesn't -- and can't -- be applied with any consistency.

Tom Kowalski brought this up on 1130 AM this morning.  If everything happens the exact same way on the one-yard line, it would have been ruled a touchdown when he swung his arm down and broke the plane—OR, he would have been ruled down by contact at the one.  Yet, it occurred inside the end zone, where all he has to do is establish possession in bounds, and it ruled incomplete.

Of course, the fact that the Lions really needed this win can’t enter into the discussion.  That Matthew Stafford, and—how is no one talking about this?—Cliff Avril were lost in the effort doesn’t matter. That Shaun Hill’s outstanding job of leading the Lions down the field in the closing minute, and perfect rainbow thrown while being hit, were the kind of last-minute game-winning heroics we’re always the victims, and never beneficiaries of . . . none of it matters.  The refs couldn’t give the Lions the win because they wanted it, because they fought so hard for it, because they desperately needed it, or because they deserved it.

But they should have given the Lions the win, because the Lions won.

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