Hello Chicago Bears fans! Well, this is more like it. A look at the referees in a game the Chicago Bears dominated against the Philadelphia Eagles behind QB3, Case Keenum. Welcome back to Upon Further Review, the in-season series on the striped ones, the zebras, the arbiters of the yellow flag. Week 3 was Monday Night at Soldier Field, third-string Case Keenum, and a 27–7 beating of the Eagles that did not need the officials to invent it. Philadelphia doubled Chicago in accepted flags (10–61 to 5–45),
turned the ball over three times, and handed Shawn Hochuli’s crew the automatic firsts that fed Keenum’s sneak. That is the accepted tape. The gray tape is D’Marco Jackson’s sideline shot on Jalen Hurts — thrown as unnecessary roughness, offset by a Lane Johnson hold, graded here as Incorrect — and an interior no-call where an Eagles back tackled a Bears rusher and the flag stayed in the pocket. The league file this week is not even our game: Josh Wallace’s wiped interception in Denver, a DPI the NFL has now told Sean McVay should never have been called. Same scale as always. Same weights. Every flag and the no-calls that matter, in order.
Let’s briefly review the project: Upon Further Review exists to answer the questions about the calls on the field with film, the rulebook, and a consistent grading scale. Each week I isolate the flags and no-calls that went against Chicago and against the opponent, grade every one as Correct, Arguable, Incorrect, or Horrible, then roll those grades into four numbers: a Calls-Against-Bears rating, a Calls-Against-Opponent rating, an overall referee performance score, and a differential that shows which sideline got the better of the crew. Impact gets a weight from 1 to 4 — housekeeping, drive disruption, scoring or automatic first, or a wiped score/takeaway. I also pull the most controversial call from around the league so we can see what has NFL fans screaming “wait, what?” and rules analysts assuring us it “always has been.”
Monday Night Football, Sept. 28, Soldier Field. Crew: Shawn Hochuli. Official totals: Chicago 5–45, Philadelphia 10–61. Four of Philly’s flags were automatic first downs. Case Keenum, the third-stringer, never got sacked. The Eagles turned it over three times and scored once.
First Quarter
PHI 0, CHI 7 (Burden 8-yard catch from Keenum, 8:47)
Jalen Hurts (PHI), intentional grounding, 10 yards — 7:01. Opening Eagles drive dies. 2nd down. Correct. Wt 2.
Riq Woolen (PHI), defensive holding, 5 yards — 3:31. Auto first. Secondary grab. Arguable. Wt 3.
Tyler Steen (PHI), offensive holding, 10 yards — 1:46. Wipes a Barkley chunk (reports had ~18–19 yards). 2nd-and-long, then Tank Bigsby fumbles; Xavier Woods recovers at the PHI 15. Correct. Wt 3.
D’Andre Swift (CHI), false start, 5 yards — 0:26. Dead-ball. Correct. Wt 1.
Second Quarter
PHI 0, CHI 7
Riq Woolen (PHI), illegal contact, 5 yards — 15:00. 3rd down, auto first. Arguable. Wt 3.
Drew Kendall (PHI), false start, 1 yard — 13:59. Correct. Wt 1.
Cam Lewis (CHI), defensive pass interference, 21 yards — 12:00. Big chunk to the Eagles. Arguable. Wt 3.
CALL OF THE GAME: D’Marco Jackson (CHI), unnecessary roughness / Lane Johnson (PHI), offensive holding — offsetting — 8:37. Hurts scrambles toward the marker at the CHI 13 and is stepping out. Jackson hits him in the shoulder/helmet area and dumps him out of bounds. Spotters pull Hurts for concussion protocol. Andy Dalton comes in; three ineffective runs, then a pick to Dillon Thieneman in the back of the end zone on 3rd-and-goal from the 2. Hurts is cleared and returns. Jackson grade: Incorrect (All-22 confirmed). He is making a play on a runner at the sticks, not launching a defenseless passer in the pocket. The rule they hung on him is the sideline “late hit / forcible contact” package. The hit is ugly on the broadcast. It is not a clean RTP. Offset with Johnson’s hold, so the 15 never walks off — but Hurts leaves, Dalton throws the ball to Thieneman, and Chicago kicks a 29-yarder at 1:52 for 10–0. Weight on the call: 4 for the cascade (QB out, red-zone INT, field goal the other way). Weight on the offset: the hold saved Chicago 15 yards and a first.
PHI 10, CHI 10 at the half after Hurts’ 1-yard sneak as time expires.
Third Quarter
PHI 7, CHI 13 after Santos’ 48-yarder (10:17), then 7–20 on Keenum-to-Raymond, 41 yards (5:47).
Cairo Santos (CHI), kickoff short of landing zone — 5:47. After the Raymond TD. Process foul. Correct. Wt 1.
Philadelphia (team), delay of game, 5 yards — 3:30. 4th-and-1 at their own 49, tush-push look, they take delay and punt. Sirianni later says he should have gone. Correct. Wt 2.
Rome Odunze (CHI), offensive pass interference — declined — 3:12.
Kelee Ringo (PHI), offensive holding, 10 yards — 2:45. 4th down. Correct. Wt 2.
T.J. Edwards INT of Hurts, 4th-and-5 at the CHI 46, :27. No flag. Drive becomes the 13-play dagger.
Fourth Quarter
PHI 7, CHI 20
Moro Ojomo (PHI), neutral zone infraction, 5 yards — 12:48. 4th-and-2 at the PHI 39. Chicago was ready to let Keenum operate; Ojomo jumps. Auto first at the 34. Correct. Wt 4. That flag is a touchdown later.
Rome Odunze (CHI), false start, 4 yards — 9:14. Correct. Wt 1.
Andrew Mukuba (PHI), defensive holding, 5 yards — 9:14. Same snap family as Ojomo’s earlier jump: wipes Ojomo’s sack of Keenum on third down. Auto first. Arguable. Wt 4. Keenum sneaks from the 1 at 7:19. 27–7.
Jonah Jackson (CHI), unnecessary roughness, 15 yards — 7:19. After the extra point, enforced on the kickoff. Celebratory/dead-ball shot. Correct. Wt 1.
E.J. Jenkins (PHI), false start, 5 yards — 6:26. Correct. Wt 1.
No-calls against Philadelphia (Tax column)
Inside rush, Eagles back tackles the Bears rusher — holding, no flag.
This is the one I flagged on tape reviewing the All-22: an Eagles back (Barkley/Bigsby/Shipley look) doesn’t chip. He wraps a Chicago defensive lineman and takes him to the ground. That is holding every day and twice on Sunday. But apparently not on Monday. Hochuli’s crew did not throw the yellow fabric on the tackle on the interior. RULING: Incorrect. Wt 2 on a standard down; Wt 3 if it is the rush that would have been a sack/hurry on Hurts. UFR logs it as Incorrect, Wt 3 – clearly a sack-in-waiting if the tackle isn’t made.
Calls Against Chicago
Calls Against Philadephia
Accepted on PHI: 7 Correct, 3 Arguable. Plus one Incorrect no-call.
Crew card (accepted): 11 Correct, 4 Arguable, 1 Incorrect (Jackson UR, offset).
Combined with no-call: 11 Correct, 4 Arguable, 2 Incorrect, 0 Horrible.
Differential. Wrong-call net is small and split. Jackson’s Incorrect flag hurt Philadelphia’s quarterback availability more than it hurt Chicago’s field position (offset). The holding no-call is the Bears Tax in operation — same interior wrap they throw when the other color does it. Ojomo and Mukuba earned Philly flags that became the 27–7 sneak. Hochuli was busy – but strangely, for the most part, not overly focused on the Bears. Philly handed him the laundry.
League file — Flag of the Week
Sunday Night: Josh Wallace (LAR) DPI on Pat Bryant, 3rd-and-6 from the Rams’ 11, Rams leading 26–23, 1:09 left. Wallace intercepts Bo Nix. Flag. First-and-goal Denver 7. Broncos score, 30–26. Pat Bryant later said he “sold it just enough.” Terry McAulay on NBC didn’t love the flag. Wednesday, Sean McVay: the league agreed the DPI should not have been called. Bill Vinovich’s crew. Grade: Incorrect (league now says so), Weight 4. Game-changing pick becomes game-winning opponent touchdown. Stafford still threw a pick on the last play — that part is on Los Angeles. The wiped INT, however, changed the game, and the building in New York said so two days later.
But what did you think about the officiating in the Bears vs. Eagles game on Monday night? And what did you think about that call in the Rams-Broncos game? Tell us in the comments below!
