Watch: Referee Appears To Cheat To Help HS Football Team
Under most circumstances, if a football team has 12 players on the field, that’s a five-yard illegal procedure penalty.
But when the 12th man for your team is the game’s referee? Well, that’s a decisive advantage and there’s nobody to call the foul.
Like this referee in a high school game, who gave the offense a first down even though the ball was well short of where the sticks indicated it needed to reach. He even seemed to help give the offense a couple of extra inches by moving the ball forward with his foot, seemingly to the surprise of his fellow official.
At least one player on the defensive side of the ball didn’t seem to happy with the ruling, pleading for the official to come to his senses.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BohUon4hiAb/
What’s amazing is that nobody else on the officiating crew stepped in to question the official’s actions.
While this video has attracted plenty of comments from puzzled viewers across social media, it hasn’t attracted anyone who has been able to clarify where this took place or provide any context about if the official offered any explanation for his actions.
We do know there is one possible explanation for one of the two situations seen in the video.
If the offensive team had started its drive after a touchback on its own 20-yard line, and the play in question was to determine if the offense had reached the 30-yard line, the official may have determined that the tip of the ball had essentially broken the plane of the stripe without requiring visual proof from the down markers — which in a high school game could easily have been off by a few inches depending on the experience level of the people manning the markers.
What isn’t explainable, however, is why the official felt the need to nudge the ball forward with his foot.
This video attracted plenty of attention in the wake of some controversial officiating in a much higher-profile setting.
During last Sunday’s game between the Cleveland Browns and Oakland Raiders, the Browns lost out on a chance to be over .500 for the first time since Week 14 of the 2014 season when they appeared to get cheated out of a first down by a rotten spot from the referee late in the game.
How’s this not a first down pic.twitter.com/4nJjREqPky
— kent borough (@kbjbouncebball) October 1, 2018
They also got cheated out of a defensive touchdown in a game they ended up losing 45-42.
NFL Officiating confirms fumble, bad whistle in #Browns vs #Raiders pic.twitter.com/ujOGIGTUvW
— Patrick Claybon (@PatrickClaybon) October 5, 2018
Some would say that the Browns are perfectly capable of defeating themselves and don’t need any outside help losing football games. But if you agree with Bill Simmons that “God hates Cleveland,” the almighty might’ve disguised himself as a zebra for this one.
Being a football referee is hard, even when there’s no fix in on the game.
After all, the infamous “Fail Mary” game of 2012, in which replacements for striking referees handed the Seattle Seahawks an undeserved win over the Green Bay Packers on “Monday Night Football,” ended up being the catalyst that led the NFL to cut a deal with its officials’ union just to get professionals back out there calling games.
But sometimes, the saying “never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence” isn’t the right way to go.
Sometimes a call is so blatantly wrong, so over-the-top, that you really do need to launch an investigation to find out why the referee was that crooked.
Or get that ref a job as a boxing judge.
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