Sports Time Radio

If you’ve ever listened to the Sports Time Radio podcast you may have hear me mention how I’m not a gambler. Well with my picks for wild card weekend it’s a good thing I’m not. I ended up going 3-3 with my predictions so at least I didn’t have a losing record. I won with Tampa Bay, Kansas City and Los Angeles while Las Vegas, Dallas and New England where my losing picks. I’ll try again this Saturday and see how those picks work out for me.

Now with a couple of the teams that lost there where some odd things that happened in their games. Now the media has spent most of their time focusing on the end of the Dallas Cowboys vs. San Francisco 49ers so I’m going to go the other direction and discuss the situation that occurred in the Cincinnati Bengals vs. the Las Vegas Raiders.

The play I’m taking about had Bengals quarterback rolling to his right and just as it appeared he was going to go out of bounds he threw the football into the end zone. Tyler Boyd of the Bengals came open in the back of the end zone for a touchdown.

Now at first there was speculation that Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow had stepped out of bounds before the threw the football, but on the replay, you can clearly see that Burrow was inbounds when he releases the football.

So, if there was no problem with the pass itself then what was the issue with the play? Well as it turned out one of the referees inadvertently blew their whistle. Now by NFL rule when a situation like this occurs the down is supposed to be played over. Well for some reason this officiating crew didn’t bother to do that and allowed the touchdown to count for the Bengals.

What I’m having a difficult time figuring out with this call is why didn’t someone from New York where they go to get replay calls step in and help them get this call right? You’d think that a correct call would be what they’d want, but for some reason it didn’t happen.

Now referees for playoff games are assigned by how well they do during the regular season, so you would’ve thought that these where some of the better officials in the NFL, but apparently not. Overall, this officiating crew didn’t have a very good game and the NFL has said that they won’t be used again in these playoffs.

Now just because that touchdown shouldn’t have counted doesn’t mean that play had any effect on the outcome of the game. Don’t forget that the Bengals where on the 10-yard line and could’ve scored a touchdown on the next play or worse case would’ve been able to add a short field goal.

Even though I picked the Raiders to win, and I’d love to be able to jump up and down and complain that the referees cost me one of my picks, but let’s face it that’s not the case. Cincinnati was clearly the better team in that game and even though the Raiders had a chance to tie the game they were unable to.

Don’t forget that on the last offense play where Derek Carr threw the interception to seal the game for the Bengals the football wasn’t even thrown in the end zone. That means if that pass would’ve been completed the game clock would’ve probably run out before the Raiders could’ve gotten another snap off.

So, the Bengals got their first playoff win in 31 years and now they move into the divisional round. Cincinnati travels to Tennessee to face the #1 seeded Titans in the first game this coming Saturday.

So let me know what you thought of the ending to the Bengals/Raiders game this past weekend. What kind of affect do you think that the blown call by the referees had on the game?

Now you can listen to the Sports Time Radio podcast that I mentioned early on BlogTalkRadio.com, but if you miss the podcast over their just swing on by TuneIn.com and you can listen to the podcast whenever you want to.

You can also find me on Twitter @Burketime