We're not ones to be overly critical of officiating. Referees are human just like everybody else. They miss some calls, they get some wrong. They probably get things right more often than people realize, and at the end of the day, the two teams on the field should control their own fate.
Although the officiating crew in the Eagles' 24-23 loss to the Lions on Sunday might held to a bit more scrutiny than most. That might be because the Eagles were penalized 14 times and the Lions only two. Or maybe because Eagles coach Doug Pederson says the refs got it wrong on Ryan Mathews' reviewed fumble, and the play should've been ruled dead before the Lions recovered.
Or maybe it's because one of the officials couldn't even keep track of which team had the ball.
The strangest moment of the game by far was when the Eagles were on offense and No. 98 was called for an ineligble man downfield penalty. That, of course, is Connor Barwin's number, and while he probably could fill in for Lane Johnson at right tackle in a pinch, that was not the case here. There was more confusion when, after a lengthy review to determine whether Jordan Matthews' 27-yard reception on the play was in fact a catch, the flag had been mysteriously picked up and Eagles were awarded the gain.
So what happened exactly? As Lions coach Jim Caldwell revealed after the game, the official who threw the flag was even more confused than all of us.
“Yes, the ineligible receiver that they called downfield was (Lions defensive tackle) Devin Taylor,” coach Jim Caldwell said after the game. “Then he realized that he called it on Devin and said that’s why they picked the flag up.”
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You can't make this up. It's unclear how an official could become so confused on a standard passing play in which Carson Wentz bought time with his legs and threw the ball like quarterbacks do every week in the NFL that he mixed up which team was on offense and which was on defense. No wonder the call on the field was quietly changed, to the point where even the broadcasters weren't sure what was going on.
Should such a bizarre lapse be taken into account when considering the uneven distribution of penalties and ticky-tack nature of some of the flags? Or when weighing evidence that a call on the field was wrong and even replay wasn't enough to overturn it?
Honestly, that's for each and every individual to decide for themselves. If nothing else, the officiating of this game certainly hurt the Eagles, even if the most unusual example didn't.
