CFL Refs Fail Again??

CFL Talk
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Was there any possibility of a career ending injury on the holding call? No.

Has the league repeatedly announced a crack down on holding for the sake of player safety? No.

Has the league become so hyper vigilant on holding that unintentional, inconsequential holds are called? No.

There are missed calls, and then there are missed calls on dangerous plays that the CFL has publicly stated need to be eliminated. It is posts like this that lead me to believe that Rider Pride should be included in the DSM-5.

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personally didn’t see it as that… but a video would be good…

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So, you didn’t see the play? How can you contribute anything meaningful to a conversation if you literally haven’t seen the incident?

Neither of my teams were on the field, and to be quite honest the Riders and Esks are my 9th and 10th favorite teams in the league (behind the REDBLACKS and the Schooners) I don’t have a dog in hunt. But I think this was one of the worst non-calls I have seen.

And who has said that the Riders are more dirty than any other team? You’re defending your team against something nobody has even suggested.

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I’ve always kind of liked the Riders although I’m a Cat fan first and always. I’ve run the PVR on it multiple times and I see both Sask players involved with helmet contact and I see Anderson - as mentioned - trying to get low but not succeeding.

Sorry, Rider fans. Head hit by me. Affected the game. Has to still be affecting Reilly right now.

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If Durant had been taken out with that hit in the last minutes of a game, there would be 300 Rider "fans" jamming the CFL office phone lines and asking for Higgins to be fired.

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Only Rider fans would doubt it

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And please - be just as supportive when its other teams - there have been plenty other similar examples and everyone is silent and when the shoe is on the other foot most call those complaining sore losers.

If on review ( I listened on siruis and on that play the Edmonton announcers never questioned the hit - they questioned if the ball was down on contact ) - if it was intentional head to head then deal with it and then ensure that it is consistent for all teams.

Saskatchewan is no more dirty then any other teams - and it seems that there is a very different standard for most people depending on the team


So, you didn’t see the play? How can you contribute anything meaningful to a conversation if you literally haven’t seen the incident?

Neither of my teams were on the field, and to be quite honest the Riders and Esks are my 9th and 10th favorite teams in the league (behind the REDBLACKS and the Schooners) I don’t have a dog in hunt. But I think this was one of the worst non-calls I have seen.

And who has said that the Riders are more dirty than any other team? You’re defending your team against something nobody has even suggested.


The Edmonton call team said it was a good hard hit - after watching the replay they mentioned nothing reqarding the hit - they where talking about if the Qb was down by contact before the ball came out. I figured if the home teams announcers never mentioned it - and after watching the replay never mentioned it … It’s fair game to comment based on thier comments

And when a rider gets taken out and people post about it folks attack them as sore losers. Its the double standard that gets irritating.

A rider player is accused by posters on this board of going helmet on helmet in a hit - and then post that dirty plays have no place in the game and that includes the riders? … Seriously you don’t see that as implying they played dirty?

If the hit was as dirty as posters where saying the home team announcers would have come unglued on the non call

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If Durant had been taken out with that hit in the last minutes of a game, there would be 300 Rider "fans" jamming the CFL office phone lines and asking for Higgins to be fired.
So now they took him out - by morning the story will have grown to the riders ripping his arms off his body - burning his house down and stealing his dog ........

I get it you don’t like the riders but this is getting over the top

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How about the blatant holding on Stamps' first TD... then again on the Esks' go ahead TD later in the game? It goes both ways...
Was there any possibility of a career ending injury on the holding call? No.

Has the league repeatedly announced a crack down on holding for the sake of player safety? No.

Has the league become so hyper vigilant on holding that unintentional, inconsequential holds are called? No.

There are missed calls, and then there are missed calls on dangerous plays that the CFL has publicly stated need to be eliminated. It is posts like this that lead me to believe that Rider Pride should be included in the DSM-5.


In the riders stamps game near the end there was off setting facemasks. Both players clearly has the others face masks In hand. The official would have to see both to see the other. They only called the rider player on the major. Where was this anger and demand for safe play and justice? Face masking is a dangerous play that can result in serious injury. I supported both getting penalized.

All bad plays should be called and called consistently. Until I see a replay I’m supporting the home team announcers who never mentioned any concern over the hit - just concern regarding possession

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The two Rider players involved were Brown and Butler…I mentioned earlier in the thread it was not Anderson!

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TSN’s crew was talking about it and how it should have been called, FWIW.

TBH a lot of the stuff people are talking about now isn’t particularly relevant. It doesn’t matter if it was a “dirty” hit, and it doesn’t matter if they intended to hit him in the head. They hit a QB helmet to helmet, and that’s a flag based on how it’s been called last year and so far this year. Why is it suddenly not one in this game?

The inconsistency is the problem.

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It has been summed up pretty nicely by another poster in this thread. There appears to be a double standard by some fans on this forum. I seem to recall in last year’s game vs Toronto at Mosaic there was a play similar to this one where Durant had been hit helmet to helmet by a Toronto player. The hit was not called, and stalled the last minute drive which may have ended in a W if called. The hit was defended by some of the posters on this forum. It seems that its “dirty” when a Rider player does it, but its ok if it happens to Durant. That’s not wearing green goggles, that is an observation I have made by posting on this forum for several seasons now.

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The game is up on the TSN website, and the play starts with 1:27 left on the clock in the 4th quarter. (around 1:55:30 in the video)

http://video.tsn.ca/?dl=cfl-gamesondemand/null/1/0/137810/video/0

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Your missing the point here. It was a head shot and should have been called regardless of which team it was, the league needs to step up, and protect it’s players. At this point I don’t care who won or loss or which teams player got hit.

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The Edmonton call team said it was a good hard hit - after watching the replay they mentioned nothing reqarding the hit - they where talking about if the Qb was down by contact before the ball came out. I figured if the home teams announcers never mentioned it - and after watching the replay never mentioned it .... It's fair game to comment based on thier comments

And when a rider gets taken out and people post about it folks attack them as sore losers. Its the double standard that gets irritating.

A rider player is accused by posters on this board of going helmet on helmet in a hit - and then post that dirty plays have no place in the game and that includes the riders? … Seriously you don’t see that as implying they played dirty?

If the hit was as dirty as posters where saying the home team announcers would have come unglued on the non call


TSN’s crew was talking about it and how it should have been called, FWIW.

TBH a lot of the stuff people are talking about now isn’t particularly relevant. It doesn’t matter if it was a “dirty” hit, and it doesn’t matter if they intended to hit him in the head. They hit a QB helmet to helmet, and that’s a flag based on how it’s been called last year and so far this year. Why is it suddenly not one in this game?

The inconsistency is the problem.


If the league reviews it and finds it warrants supplementary discipline I fully support it as I would with any other player from any other team.

There is a huge difference between plays like this and a play a few years ago when a lions player tried to break the arm of a stampeder. This is getting almost the same level of outrage which is the reason for the head scratching. I’m not placing it on you but you do agree don’t you that the cfl and its fans are both as inconsistent in rules issues

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Think for yourself man! A rational person would recognize that there seems to be 2 very different interpretations of the play and would probably want to see for themselves before they blindly took someone’s word for it.

FWIW Matt Dunigan and Chris Schultz disagree with you and the Esks play-by-play team, but they must be wrong… after all we can trust the Esk announcers. You should fire off an email to Schultzy letting him know that the infallible Eskie announcers say the hit was clean. Let’s see if he issues an on air retraction next game.

:roll:

Take off the Rider Pride glasses (or are they blinders) and take a deep breath.

Yes, there are times when Rider fans complain about non-call on Rider players. And when Rider fans are the only people complaining about that call, they do get called sore losers. But this is a case where Tiger-Cat fans and Alouette fans and fans of non-existant teams are complaining about a call affecting the Esks.

And you’re right, there is an irritating double standard. A clear helmet to helmet hit by a Rider is shrugged off by Rider fans as incidental and not a big deal. But a helmet to helmet hit on Darian Durant is called dirty, classless, intentional, etc. etc. by those same Rider fans.

YOU HAVEN’T EVEN SEEN THE PLAY!

It was clearly a helmet to helmet hit. Did Weldon Brown intentionally do it? Probably not. How hard did the 5’10" Rider try to avoid helmet to helmet contact with the 6’3" Eskimo QB? IMO not very hard at all. At best, the hit was reckless and in clear violation of the CFL’s guidelines regarding QB safety.

The word dirty has been used more by you that any other poster in this thread. Why is that? Did it hit a nerve? It was only used once by a non-Rider fan. I don’t think it was dirty, I think it was reckless but IMO there is a very fine line between reckless and dirty.

And I don’t know were you got the opinion that radio announcers should come unglued on-air… but I’m pretty sure that’s not how professionals conduct themselves. Although I do realize that people may be held to a lower standard in Saskatchewan. :wink:

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I haven't read through the entire thread (seems to be just back and forth arguing anyways) but a flag should have been thrown on the play for roughing the passer. The inconsistency around the league the past few years regarding the way they rule roughing the passer has been pretty widely known. Some games they toss the flag on plays which are clean, and sometimes they miss the obvious ones (like this game). It's probably the biggest area that they need to clean up.

Would it have made a difference in this game? Maybe, impossible to tell. It's still something they need to get better at. If the roles were reversed I'd probably be upset about the missed call.

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I saw the hit. I saw the replay. I saw the super slow motion replay.
IMHO, it was a helmet to helmet hit. Deliberate? I doubt it. But here's the thing, there is no allowance in the rules to allow for "accidental" penalties.

I think the refs missed a call there. I also think they missed some blatant holds against Edmonton, and I'm sure a few other things, as well, (not to mention a control center replay call to overturn a fumble call without actual video evidence) but that's not relevant to this play. Officials don't keep a "balance sheet" to even up calls. I would not be surprised to hear that the Riders' player earned a fine for that play.

That said, I think a suspension would be inconsistent with discipline doled out for previous similar hits.

I also don't think that the penalty is reviewable in instant replay. Perhaps, MAYBE, they could have overturned the fumble, but the replay official doesn't have the authority to call an on-field penalty. Thing is, Reilly would have been out for three plays anyway, as the trainers came out, and Joseph would have had to come in cold, so its unlikely that Edmonton would have scored on the drive, or even gotten another 1st down. Note I said "unlikely", not "impossible". But its not possible to speculate on the outcome, so saying that the call/non-call changed the outcome of the game is guesswork at best.

Personally, I think the officiating overall has taken a big step backwards this year. The last couple of years, I thought it was getting better, but this year it just seems like the zebras are having brain fart after brain fart.

And while I'm a Riders fan, it does seem to me that the Esks are getting burned a little more than most. Remember the non-review at the end of the Edmonton Montreal game?

I have said this before, and I still believe that the solution is to pay these guys a decent living wage, and make officiating their full-time job during the season. Make them train and watch game film and do drills just like the players do. Cut them if they screw up, just like teams do with players. But most of all, PAY THESE GUYS PROPERLY! Then maybe the league could draw some actual talent into the job. Right now, no one wants to do it, and the talent pool is very very weak.

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:thup: :thup:

People like you are why I haven’t completely given up on Rider fans.

:thup:

With the new TV contract there’s some discussion about increasing the salary cap. IMO take the next $250,000 per team increase in salary cap and spend that money instead on officials. That’ll increase the average official salary to the level of the average CFL player and will give those guys a decent full time wage. The $250,000 per team spent on officials will have a much greater effect on the quality of the game than giving every player a $5,000 raise.

The officials screw up all too often, but they’re pretty good… for amateurs. Let’s pay them a professional wage and see if we get a professional level of conduct.

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This is how it is. Should it have been flagged?? Yes. Was it a deliberate hit to the head? We really don't know, but it didn't seem to me that Brown's intention was to use his helmet as a weapon, so I don't believe it was dirty. Have CFL ref's been particularly bad on QB oriented calls this season? Yes. Should it be better? Of course. Will it be better? Probably not. Until we pay these refs like down south (Good luck with that) there's going to continue to be miscalls like this as there consistently is. There are calls I see every week that bother me (especially when they effect my team, as any fan) but what will be done about it?? The officiating board can talk about it all they want, but on the field in the heat of the moment it's going to be missed when you have the quality of refs we do, it's the sad truth. And for those using this as a means to attack the Riders or our fans, grow up. This type of thing has happened on many occasions and it's not just this instance where a team has gotten away with a hit like this. Take it for what it is. The CFL.