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The Baltimore Ravens are moving on to game plan for their matchup against the St. Louis Rams as we speak. But that doesn't mean that they should move on from the late game mistake by the refs in the Ravens 22-20 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars.
For those of you who are not up to speed on the situation here is a quick recap. In week 10, Jaguars left tackle Luke Joeckel should have been flagged for not getting set properly when the ball was snapped near the very end of regulation against the Ravens. Joeckel should have been penalized and in result there should have been a 10 second run off and the game would be over resulting in a Ravens victory. Instead, the refs missed the call and called a personal foul facemask penalty on Ravens outside linebacker Elvis Dumervil who sacked Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles. The Jaguars went on to kick the game winning field goal.
After the game, the NFL publicly admitted the mistake. Here is the controversial play below:
The missed false start on the Jaguars. Luke Joeckel (76) still moving at the snap. #Ravens https://t.co/71aMIbRyVM
— Pete Damilatis (@PFF_Pete) November 16, 2015
Despite the mistake, the NFL is not going to suspend the officials who were involved in that game according to ESPN's Kevin Seifert.
Suspending the refs isn't going to make the Ravens organization happy or Ravens fans who have been wanting to see this team improve all year satisfied either. Suspending a ref doesn't bring a win back. But at the same time, I don't like the way the NFL is washing their hands away from this situation basically attributing it to, "Hey it happens."
The NFL league office talks about the integrity of the game all the time but they are OK with their refs being clueless on the field. From the intentional kicked ball during the game between the Seattle Seahawks and the Detroit Lions this season to this current disaster in the Ravens-Jaguars game proves that the NFL doesn't care about the amount terrible officiating going on around the league. Suspending refs isn't good enough.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell suspended New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton for a year in 2012 for the situation with "Bounty gate" saying, "Ignorance is not an excuse" in terms of Payton's knowledge of whether or not he knew about a bounty system going on in the Saints organization.
So why is ignorance an excuse for the NFL at this point by letting games be decided and never reversed by terrible calls or non calls? People don't care if the refs made a mistake or whether or not they saw the play. People want the refs to get the play right.
Players and coaches lives are determined by wins. Especially if a team is struggling to win games. When the season is over, the owner and the front office of each NFL organization will review all of the games and there won't be any style points attributed to them. They won't care if the refs made a mistake. All they will look at are wins and losses.
The Ravens need to demand compensation from the NFL. This is not a small deal. The Ravens with a 3-6 record would have much better confidence going towards the end of the season as opposed to a 2-7 record regardless of whether they turned around and made the playoffs or not. Wins are not easy to come by in the NFL.
I don't care if the Ravens demand for the final score to be reversed, additional cap space, or taking the Jaguars 2016 first round pick as a consolation prize. Any of those three things would like a good deal in return.
I also don't care about the rules, the CBA or anything else in regards to the three demands I listed above because it is apparent that the NFL doesn't care much for rules these days. They don't care much about anything these days. As long as they get their money.
So the Ravens need to fight this. Situations like these can't be happening to NFL teams. The league needs to practice what they preach for once. Protect the shield right? This situation should be far from over.