NFC Divisional Playoff
Follow us here for rolling coverage of the calls and rules interpretations of the 49ers-Panthers Divisional Playoff game from Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, N.C. (If you see continue reading below, click it to see the entire feed.)
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Today’s crew his headed by Carl Cheffers.
| Yr. | Crew | College | Occupation | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| R | 51 | Carl Cheffers | 14 | California-Irvine | sales manager | |
| U | 71 | Ruben Fowler | 8 | Leavy | Huston-Tillotson | retired firefighter |
| HL | 54 | George Hayward | 23 | Corrente | Missouri Western | vice-president and manager, warehouse company |
| LJ | 100 | Tom Symonette | 10 | Cheffers | Florida | certified public accountant |
| FJ | 88 | Scott Steenson | 23 | Winter | North Texas | commercial real estate developer |
| SJ | 62 | Ronald Torbert | 4 | Corrente | Michigan State | attorney |
| BJ | 133 | Steve Freeman | 13 | Triplette | Mississippi State | custom home builder |
That call on Mike Mitchell was ridiculous, the ball was still in the air when the hit was made. It wasn’t close at all, it was a horrifying call! Stop defending the officials, and I can’t imagine Steve Freeman (who is the worst back judge in the NFL) getting an super Bowl.
Actually the ball had bounced off the ground into the air. I’m a Panther fan but the call was legit. Two years ago it’s nothing but not now.
Horrifying game called by Cheffer’s crew. Very inconsistent flags regarding unnecessary roughness penalties. One head butt on Captain Munnerlynn was called, while another one by Anquan Boldin wasn’t called. Horrible game.
I am astounded that Ben Austro fails to mention the missed head butt call by Anquan Boldin. This site is garbage just like Carl Cheffer’s crew today. The worst officiated NFL game I have ever watched and I have been watching football since 1979.
12 men on the field on offense. Ref alerted the offense while in the huddle did not throw flag. All in all, refs control the game and can sway momentum whenever they want. Anyonehaving anything to do with the NFL cannot comment on poor officiating without being fined, censored and/or blacklisted. That is just another way of saying, “The fix is in.”
@Alan
Thanks for reminding me. I was waiting for someone to post GIFs of it, and then I moved on to other things.
Pathetic is the only word that can explain the officiating, the nfl pays the referees salary. The league caters to marquis players, they want certain matchups to happen,and they make sure that it happens. For example, all u been hearing about is how great it would be for a seahawks-49ers game, with the harbaugh-pete carrol fued, or the brady-manning matchup. They got what they wanted at the expense of the teams that worked so hard to get to the playoffs. It is very cowardly of the nfl, to allow this to continue. I myself am about to boycott the nfl or anything to do with it,if there is not drastic measures done to make evenly called games,if they keep up their less than mediocre,so called officiating, they might as well run for president in 2016.
Any thoughts on the “roughing the quarterback” call at 4:00 of 4th qtr that negated a sack?
I thought roughing the passer could only be called if a forward pass occurred. It was helmet-to-helmet, but a runner is not a defenseless player and the quarterback had become a runner by that point.
The officiating by Carl Cheffers’ crew was, as typical for a Cheffers-led crew, full of questionable and inconsistent calls. Two 15 yard unnecessary roughness/unsportsmanlike penalties on Carolina in the first quarter for very marginal calls with minimal contact, only to completely ignore any actions by San Francisco in the first half, including the Boldin head butt. Apparantely the 49ers are only penalized when their head coach runs on the field and starts berating the referee in his face. Also a clearly missed 12 men in the huddle penalty is inexcusable. Another very questionable roughing the passer penalty in the second half against Carolina when the game was essentially decided – I suppose this was a make-up call? This crew was a joke. I implore readers of this site to watch Cheffers-officiated games in the future, noting they are full of egregious errors and inconsistent penalties (espeically pass interference and unnecessary roughness/unsportsmanlike penalties). BAL-DET and PIT-GB are perfect, recent examples of uneven officiating by this crew. How Cheffers is eligible for the SB is beyond me. He’s reached Ron Winter levels of incompetence in my view.
Defenders hit receivers after they don’t come up with a catch all the time. Imagine if they weren’t allowed to — the defender would literally have to wait to see whether the guy caught it before starting a hit on him, or risk being penalized for hitting him when he didn’t catch it. The fact that the ball was tipped and the whistle hadn’t been blown should really have given the defender the benefit of the doubt there.
Also, you make reference to stuff like “trying to put out fires early”, but I have to insist that the refs threw fuel and not water onto the fire by apparently calling it so close against the Panthers and more or less letting the 49ers play. Were the 49ers supposed to take the same “watch yourself” message from the Panthers penalties? Because I can assure you they didn’t.