Sgt. Largent":wjddo2dp said:
I won't lie, I'm not a conspiracy guy, but after the 3rd Harvin TD was negated by a suspect penalty I did joke that the league must of told the refs to keep the game close due to all these terrible primetime games of late.
I'm not a conspiracy theory guy either, but if you look at the flags, and the ones that stayed in the pocket, it's pretty obvious the NFL didn't want another prime time blowout. Before any gets all conspiracy theory, yes I know the Hawks weren't scheduled a lot for primetime this year because they continually blow teams out (in primetime), but there have been a string of prime time blowouts this year across the league. I haven't seen a competitive Thursday night game yet.
This morning, there are PLENTY, if not ALL of the analysts complaining about the Carpenter flag. That was just bogus.
Spinning the football is illegal. That's not up for debate. It's also kinda hard to hide, especially right in front of the refs. Yet there was no flag on Wash for doing so.
Harvin's false start. Even Pete scratched his head about that. Harvin went in motion, but late. Pete said he thought "it kind of surprised the line judge by him taking off late". I don't give a crap if you're surprised or not, being startled isn't grounds for a penalty.
There was an obvious offsides on the Redskins. Flag comes out. False start on Seattle. TV replay shows NONE of the OL moved a hair, not even after the DLman jumped across the neutral zone and into the OL.
Harvin was tackled to the ground twice while trying to go out for routes after crossing the formation in motion. No calls. TV replayed it.
Sherman was dragged down by his hair, by a WR, on a route to which he was thrown the ball. No flag. These are very obvious fouls, nothing ticky tack, and nothing hard to see. I saw all of these on a 47" TV, in a bar, with the only replay allowed to me was TV replay. It's either an agenda, or gross incompetence the like we haven't seen in years.
If I wanted to dig further, 2 of those I mentioned (these were all the most egregious) called back TD's and one was in FG range (false start). There seemed to be a concerted effort to make it harder for us to score, and keep the game close. I'm not taking it personal that the NFL has it out for the Hawks, but it was definately there.