I’ll probably get in a lot of trouble for my opinion on this, judging from the angry tweets from Winnipeg Blue Bombers fans about the officiating on Friday night’s game against the Calgary Stampeders. They say one call cost Winnipeg the game. One call drove the Bombers back five yards, causing Lirim Hajrullahu to kick the game-tying field goal wide, resulting in a dramatic Stampeder 25-23 win.
Did bad CFL officiating cost the Winnipeg Blue Bombers the game against the Calgary Stampeders? It’s not so black and white.
It was a bad call. It was a very bad call. Even the CFL admitted that the officials made a mistake in calling an illegal procedure penalty on the Blue Bombers. Winnipeg’s defence had kept Calgary at bay for most of the night, limiting Calgary to field goals instead of touchdowns. But in the last minute of the game, Winnipeg got the ball on Calgary’s 37-yard line. Winnipeg was gearing up for a touchdown, or at least a field goal attempt. Then the flag flew.
I’m not going to go into the fine details of the penalty, but basically Winnipeg was called for an illegal procedure for having no end on a third and short play. There was some confusion on the side official and Winnipeg’s Darwin Adams’ conversation as to whether he was on the line of scrimmage. The official confirmed to Adams that he was but was sidetracked as to whether Stanley Bryant had reported to be eligible for the play. So even though he told Adams he was on the line of scrimmage, in the end he was flagged for not being there. VP of officiating, Glen Johnson, explained, “It just kind of caused him to kind of get him off his focus and ultimately we called a penalty that we shouldn’t have called.” He also confirmed that the official will be disciplined.
After the game, Twitter exploded with upset Bombers fans saying that the penalty cost them the game and some even saying costing them a playoff spot. But did the call cost them the game? The penalty certainly stopped the momentum of the game, but there is no guarantee that Winnipeg would have scored on that drive. Bombers fans can surely remember previous games where they’ve walked out of the red zone with no score. They could have at least settled for a field goal. Would have they gotten a field goal? Perhaps. But it would have only tied the game. Calgary still had approximately 40 seconds to get the ball back to at least within field goal range where Rene Parades could have made an attempt and been successful. We can’t say what would have happened.
Will this affect their chance at a playoff spot? There’s still plenty of time to make it to the playoffs. B.C. lost this week as well and Riders have only won two games. Even Winnipeg head coach Mike O’Shea said, “You cannot rely on the officials. You have to win games in spite of that. You can’t make an excuse like this. This type of outcome has been happening since officials were involved in any sport, from the beginning of history of sport with officials. It just happens. Human error.”
Calgary Stampeder quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell spent a good portion of yesterday defending the team win on twitter. After numerous back and forths with some angry fans, Mitchell ended the conversation by tweeting, “5 yd penalty or not. Your kicker didn’t miss it short. He missed it WIDE right.” True enough; there’s that.
Here’s my take: it was a horrible call at the worst time. But here’s no guarantee Winnipeg would have scored and changed the outcome of the game. This is also not the only time a team has complained that a bad call cost their team the game, nor will it be the last.
It’s CFL football. Let’s move on to week 15.
