Hello Chicago Bears fans! This one is a fun one, as the Chicago Bears dominated the New York Jets and the laundry was one sided in our favor. Tyson Bagent started for Caleb Williams, and threw four interceptions – only one of which counted as a result of Jets peanlties. Kyle Monangai ran for 146 and two scores, in the wake of two controversial goal-line reversals by the eye-in-the-sky, turning away two Swift touchdowns and turning the ball back over to the Jets. Chicago held the ball for 42:45 on their
way to a 3–1 record and a date with the Pack. New York had 157 yards, seven first downs, and one touchdown. Carl Cheffers’ crew accepted 16 flags: Chicago 4–29, Jets 12–76. However, that flag disparity is hiding some unseen calls if we just look at the yellow cloth on the field. The flags killed three Jets interceptions (two of which would not have been interceptions but for the flags), and “upon further review” two Bears touchdowns were deleted from the scoreboard.
Same scale for judging flags: Correct, Arguable, Incorrect, Horrible. Impact weight is scaled 1–4: housekeeping, drive disruption, scoring or automatic first, wiped score or takeaway.
First Quarter
NYJ 0, CHI 0
Elijah Hicks (CHI), illegal block above the waist, 6 yards — 15:00. Opening kick. Zach Thomas returns to the 15; enforced back to the 6. Correct. Wt 1.
Darrell Jackson Jr. (NYJ), face mask, 15 yards — 10:39. 2nd-and-8 at the NYJ 31. Monangai for 1. Jackson grabs the facemask. Ball to the NYJ 15. Chicago reaches the 1 and has a Swift touchdown reversed. Correct. Wt 3.
Replay — Swift, runner broke the plane, reversed — 9:31. 2nd-and-3 at the NYJ 4. Swift right guard is ruled a touchdown on the field. Booth looks at it and brings it back: Swift to the NYJ 1 for 2 yards. This one is a pile at the goal line. You can sell the short of the plane. You can also sell that the ball got there. Clear and obvious is not met either way. Arguable. Wt 3. It is a taken-off score, but the down is not dead yet.
Replay — Swift, runner broke the plane, reversed — 9:14. 4th-and-1 at the NYJ 1. Swift left guard is ruled a touchdown on the field. The replay official stops it. Reversed: no gain, short of the goal line. Turnover on downs. This is the one that fails the standard. The call on the field was a score. To take a touchdown off the board you need a frame that makes the ruling indisputable, not a better guess from upstairs. The available look is a body at the goal line with the ball at the hip. That is not clear and obvious. Incorrect. Wt 4. A touchdown that would have made it 7–0 becomes Jets ball at their own 1.
New York (team), delay of game, 0 yards — 9:12. Goal-line stand just held. Enforced at the NYJ 1 before the first snap of the ensuing series. Process. Correct. Wt 1.
Qwan’tez Stiggers (NYJ), illegal touch kick, 5 yards — 7:47. Wipes Austin McNamara’s 62-yard punt. Re-kick. Correct. Wt 2.
Cole Kmet (CHI), false start, 5 yards — 6:42. 2nd-and-3 at midfield. Dead-ball. Correct. Wt 1.
Theo Benedet (CHI), offensive holding, 10 yards — 4:58. 2nd-and-6 at the NYJ 29. Monangai’s 15-yard run comes back. Enforced at the 25: 2nd-and-12 at the NYJ 35. Arguable. Wt 2.
Azareye’h Thomas (NYJ), illegal use of hands, 5 yards — 4:34. The snap of the game. 2nd-and-12. Bagent throws for Loveland. T’Vondre Sweat intercepts at the NYJ 36. Flag on Thomas. No play. Automatic first at the NYJ 30. Eight plays later Monangai scores from the 1. 0–7. Correct if the hands are on the receiver before the ball — and the crew treated it as a live foul that kills the pick. Wt 4. This is the flag that turned a Jets takeaway into the first points of the afternoon.
NYJ 0, CHI 7 at 0:23.
Second Quarter
NYJ 0, CHI 7
New York (team), delay of game, 5 yards — 14:07. 3rd-and-10 at the NYJ 32 becomes 3rd-and-15. Geno Smith sacked by Austin Booker. Punt. Correct. Wt 2.
Harrison Phillips (NYJ), defensive holding, 5 yards — 5:59. Automatic first. Arguable. Wt 2.
Minkah Fitzpatrick’s interception of Bagent stands. Jets’ first pick in 21 games. They start at the CHI 34 and get a Sanders 36-yarder. 3–7.
D’Angelo Ponds (NYJ), illegal contact, 5 yards — 0:43. 3rd-and-6. Second wiped interception on the Jets’ own postgame account. Automatic first. Arguable until All-22 says the contact is early and obvious. Wt 3. Santos from 30 as the half expires. 3–13.
Third Quarter
NYJ 3, CHI 13
New York (team), delay of game — declined — 10:12. 4th-and-12.
New York (team), delay of game, 5 yards — 7:05. 4th-and-4. They still kick Sanders from 30. 6–13. Correct. Wt 1.
Brandon Stephens (NYJ), face mask, 15 yards — 6:23. 2nd-and-4. Fifteen yards and a first. Correct if the hand is in the cage. Wt 3. Monangai’s 5-yard score at 2:26 makes it 6–20.
Fourth Quarter
NYJ 6, CHI 20
Santos from 21 at 10:01. 6–23.
Sam Roush (CHI), offensive holding, 8 yards — 9:16. Kickoff after Isaiah Williams’ 58-yard touchdown. Sanders misses the extra point. 12–23. Return-team hold. Arguable. Wt 1.
Ja’Tavion Walker (CHI), illegal block above the waist — declined — 9:16. Same kick.
Demario Davis (NYJ), defensive offside, 5 yards — 8:21. 3rd-and-4. The flag Aaron Glenn tied to Brandon Stephens’ wiped interception, Chicago already up 23–12. Correct. Wt 3.
D’Angelo Ponds (NYJ), defensive holding, 5 yards — 6:08. 3rd-and-8 on the 18-play clock-killer. Automatic first. Arguable. Wt 3.
T’Vondre Sweat (NYJ), neutral zone infraction, 6 yards — 3:22. 4th-and-1. Chicago was going to run it out. Sweat jumps. First down. Drive ends the game. Correct. Wt 2.
Calls Against Chicago
Calls Against New York
12 accepted. 8 Correct, 4 Arguable, 0 Incorrect, 0 Horrible. Three of those flags are attached to interceptions that did not count. Fitzpatrick’s pick is the one that survived, and it produced three points.
Crew card: accepted flags 10 Correct, 6 Arguable. Replay adds 1 Arguable and 1 Incorrect, both on Chicago scores. Combined: 10 Correct, 7 Arguable, 1 Incorrect, 0 Horrible.
Differential. Wrong-call net is one play, and it runs at Chicago: the 4th-and-1 reversal, Weight 4. New York’s damage is self-inflicted — Thomas, Davis, Ponds, Sweat. The booth’s damage is a touchdown that stood on the field and did not survive a look that was not clear. Monangai got the seven back on the next drive. The standard still failed on the snap before that.
Flag of the game: the second Swift reversal, 4th-and-1, 9:14 of the first quarter. Call on the field was a touchdown. The rule for taking it off is clear and obvious. The tape is a goal-line pile. That is Incorrect, Weight 4 — a wiped score and a turnover, even in a game Chicago won anyway.
League file — Flag of the Week
The runner-up is a football play. Sunday in the Broncos–49ers game, San Francisco was given a special-teams turnover on a punt return. The replay that circulated afterward shows the returner’s forearm down before the ball came out. Ground caused it. That is not a fumble. It is an incomplete process: down by contact, whistle, Denver ball. The crew let it stand, the 49ers took the field position, and the building moved on. Grade: Incorrect. Weight 3. A takeaway that the tape kills. In a normal week that is the clip.
This was not a normal week.
Week 4 produced 308 flags and 271 accepted penalties, the heaviest laundry of the season and the kind of week the league has not thrown in years. Chargers–Seahawks alone had 30 accepted flags for 280 yards. Then the officials made themselves the penalty.
Jeff Seeman, line judge, Giants–Cardinals. Fourth quarter, third-and-3. Trey McBride wants pass interference on contact from Dru Phillips before the ball arrives. No flag. McBride argues. CBS sideline reporter Aditi Kinkhabwala, standing next to it, said she never heard McBride curse. The camera caught Seeman. He is yelling an expletive at a player. McBride turns, sees the lens, and points at it. Arizona lost 36–24. The flag that was not thrown is arguable. The sentence that was yelled is not.
Adrian Hill, referee, Dolphins–Vikings. First quarter at U.S. Bank Stadium. Hill has already killed the play for a neutral-zone infraction. Miami’s Ollie Gordon II keeps blocking. Eric Wilson gets bumped into the referee and Hill goes down, feet over his head. Wilson offers a hand. Hill refuses it, points, and shouts him off. Wilson’s postgame version was that Hill told him he was trying to break up a fight and that the whole thing was “funny, honestly.” Kevin O’Connell called it a high-energy moment and said Hill is a good official. The tape is a grown man who got knocked over by accident and lost the whistle.
The league’s response, Monday: both suspended for “an instance of unprofessional conduct toward a player.” Seeman two games. Hill one. A league spokesperson’s first line, Sunday, had been “we are looking into the matter.” By Monday they had looked.
The NFLPA’s response, from executive director JC Tretter, Sunday night: “This kind of behavior from an official towards a player is unacceptable. Players are consistently held accountable when the roles are reversed. We expect the NFL to hold officials to the same standard.”
The NFLRA’s response, Tuesday, from executive director Scott Green: the officials “fell short” of the professional standard, and accountability matters — but the suspensions are “excessive and inconsistent with established precedent.” The association will challenge the severity, meet with the officiating department on disciplinary standards, and meet with NFLPA leadership about “the growing levels of confrontation between players and officials.” Green’s sharper line: holding officials accountable while “ignoring or minimizing the conduct directed at them is neither fair nor an effective way to address this issue.” Before this weekend, Football Zebras counted eight reported suspensions of officials in league history. Week 4 added two. The NFLRA intends to appeal the suspensions.
So the flag of the week is not a hold, not a DPI, not even the forearm that was down. It is on the striped shirts. One official cursed at a tight end who wanted a flag. One referee barked at a linebacker who was trying to pick him up. The union says the punishment is too harsh. The players’ union says the behavior is the thing the league fines them for. Both can be pointing at the same tape. Upon Further Review is throwing the flag at the referees. Officials must maintain impartiality and neutrality in adjudicating the games fought between two teams on the gridiron. As such they have a higher duty to maintain composure than players and coaches, although players and coaches abusing officials is not OK either. As far as UFR is concerned, the suspensions are warranted – and maybe a bit too easy, given the infractions.
But what do you guys think about the flags thrown in the Bears-Jets game? Was the Swift TD correctly called back or was it another instance of the Bears Tax? And what the heck is going on with NFL officiating??? Tell us in the comments below!
