Dallas Cowboys: Inconsistent officiating the most egregious error Sunday
By Reid Hanson
A freak penalty may have cost the Dallas Cowboys the game yesterday but it wasn’t the call itself that was the problem, but the inconsistent enforcement of the call.
The Dallas Cowboys once again lost in spectacular fashion. This time missing a potential game-tying field goal as the clock ticked to zero. The deciding factor of the miss was essentially being backed up another five yards after a bizarre snap infraction call.
The 47-yard kick turned into a 52-yard kick and after going off the left crossbar, the kick would have only been successful up to about 50-yards.
So what was so egregious about this call (besides the outcome)?
The inconsistency in which it’s called. As long-snapper L.P. Ladouceur said after the game, his penalized action, is the same action he does before every long snap. The fact that it’s never been called before says how inconsistent officials are calling games these days.
Cowboys long snapper L.P. Ladouceur said he followed the same pre-snap routine prior to the officials flagging him for a snap infraction prior to the attempted game-tying kick.“I just adjusted down so I could put my hands on the bottom of it so I could... https://t.co/viVWECqu4a
— Todd Archer (@toddarcher) October 22, 2018
To make matters worse, L.P is a 14-year vet. It’s not like he’s a rookie who’s only been doing this “illegal behavior” for a few weeks. He’s been doing this for 212 games! And for 211.99 of them it’s been perfectly fine.
That’s what’s so egregious.
We live in an age where the NFL is changing rules every offseason. While it’s annoying, it’s mostly understandable (at least from a safety and legal perspective). But what’s completely unacceptable is the varying way many rules are being enforced. Whether it’s holding calls, roughing the passer calls, or illegal procedure calls – officials have to be consistent in the enforcement or else the game loses all credibility.
The false start-illegal snap penalty called on the Cowboys long snapper that moved the kick back to 52 yds was horrible. The snapper followed the same routine & did nothing to draw the Redakins offside. We looked at it over & over and I don’t see how they could have called that.
— Tony Dungy (@TonyDungy) October 22, 2018
Other Game Notes:
Tyron Smith is broken
Tyron Smith is not the man he used to be. We’ve seen injuries rob him of his elite ability over the last three seasons and seven weeks into 2018, we can safely say the trend continues. Tyron looked stiff and pained in pass protection on Sunday.
While he’s still better than many of the NFL’s starting left tackles, he’s far from the All-Pro he once was.
Geoff Swaim loss is significant
We have yet to learn the true severity of Geoff Swaim’s injury but if he is lost for any extended period of time, it will be hard to overcome. The falloff in blocking ability behind him is significant and the Dallas Cowboys have no one who can fill his shoes as a TE1. Frankly, no one is even worthy of TE2.
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Was it just me or did Chido pull up and make a “business decision” not to engage Adrian Peterson on Sunday? I know he’s dinged up but if you’re good enough to play you’re good enough to make a tackle. Even if it looks like it will hurt. I’ll be eager to check the All-22 here because this could permanently change my opinion of the second-year pro.
- Published on 10/22/2018 at 17:01 PM
- Last updated at 10/22/2018 at 19:07 PM