Stupid Yellow Flags: A Football Apocalypse

[PhillyB]

Hollywood director Francis Ford Cappola found out the hard way that no matter how much you plan, no matter how many details you consider, no matter how careful you are, sometimes things just go straight to hell. Cappola's masterpiece - 1979's Apocalypse Now - is widely considered the most disastrous production effort in all of cinema history. Marlon Brando showed up to the set surprisingly fat. Martin Sheen battled alcoholism and had a heart attack on the set. Monsoons blew into the set in the Philippines and wiped out million-dollar stages. Cappola's wife threatened to divorce him, his Italian filmmaker threatened to quit if they didn't fly in fresh pasta from Italy to Manila once a week, and no one could remember their lines. A live tiger walked onto the set. The army confiscated everyone's passports and filming permits for paying a local to drag cadavers onto the shooting location for added battle realism. Cappola reacted to these setbacks by going insane, throwing his Oscars out the window, binging on Filipino call girls, and telling the entire production crew he was going to commit suicide.

 I'm willing to bet a majority of Panthers fans had similar reactions Sunday to one of the most maddening, obstacle-laden wins in years.

Against all odds, Sunday's contest against the New Orleans Saints was a dogfight. There's a maxim in the NFL that suggests division games are always close no matter the disparity in talent or record, but that's just a popular misconception. Division opponents often clobber each other. With a 2-0 record and momentum building, it seemed Carolina was poised to put an early-season stake in the heart of the Saints. All signs pointed in the direction of a complete drubbing.

But no one thought to include atrocious officiating in the win/loss calculus. The following ten calls (or no-calls) stymied the team's efforts through four maddening quarters:

• Tripping, #96, Q1 (Good call)
• Defensive Holding, #56, Q1 (Debatable)
• Offensive Holding, #88, Q1 (Bad Call)
• Offensive Pass Interference, #47, Q1 (Good Call)
• Ball spot for the Saints, Q2 (Bad Call by a full yard)
• Out of Bounds on Kickoff, #21, Q3 (Debatable)
• Tripping, #70, Q3 (Good Call)
• Illegal Use of Hands, #94, Q3 (Bad Call)
• Roughing the Passer, #99, Q3 (Bad Call)
• No Call on roughing the passer, Q4 (Bad Call)

 

This is a pretty gruesome collection of penalties and no-calls. Anyone who sat through the game can attest to that. Some of them were Carolina's fault - Wes Horton can't blame anyone but Wes Horton for a silly tripping penalty - but fully half of the calls on the field were downright awful. Referees were making mistakes they shouldn't have been making at the professional level. The faulty spot and falsely-granted third-down conversion might've been the worst, in retrospect; the following sequence of shots shows the spot of the tackle, the officials' spotting of the ball, and the subsequent fix.

 

 

It really wasn't even close. Those are the kinds of calls that can blow games. And they didn't stop coming. Kony Ealy's phantom hands-to-the-face call had him livid, Kawann Short was clearly pushed into the quarterback, and of course there's the infamous no-call on the flagrant late hit against Cam Newton. It's a shame no one in the national media has shown coach's film of the actual hit, because it's flagrant. Here's a breakdown of the (very blurry) all-22 coach's film for you:

 

 

Pretty obvious. It didn't matter if Cam was out of the pocket because the ball was long gone and he was no longer considered a runner. Hochuli saw the entire thing from start to finish. We'll never know if he actually told Cam he was too young to get that call, but video evidence is clear: Ed Hochuli displayed wanton disregard for (or at least atrocious judgement in) the rules and regulations of the game.

But a beautiful thing happened on Sunday. The Carolina Panthers of past years have repeatedly fulfilled a tired prophecy: lose unless every little thing goes right. Carolina fans are witnesses. It's been a common thread through the Rivera era. On this particular Sunday every little thing went wrong - but the team responded, in spades.

• Greg Olsen's negated touchdown was followed by a Greg Olsen touchdown.
• Rivera's challenge of the horrible first-down spot forced the Saints to punt and resulted in a 52-yard pass to Greg Olsen on the first play from scrimmage.
• Teddy Williams's special teams blunder was answered by a clutch drive for Greg Olsen's second TD (aided by a savvy hurry-up to catch 12 Saints on the field.)
• Kony Ealy's ludicrous hands-to-the-face penalty was followed two plays later by a critical forced fumble and a Carolina field goal.
• The Panthers answered Hochuli's no-call by an 88-yard march for a touchdown and a 27-16 lead.

And of course we all know the game more or less ended with Josh Norman's jaw-dropping interception in the end zone.

The 2015 Carolina Panthers are 3-0 not because they've done everything right, but because they've shown the resiliency to win even when everything goes wrong. Championship teams have the enviable quality of pulling out wins that should never have happened. The 2015 Carolina Panthers did that on Sunday.

Apocalypse Now transcended disaster and went on to win Academy Awards nominations, top honors at the Cannes, and recognition as one of the most iconic films of its era. With this newfound penchant for gutty wins the Panthers just may follow suit.

 

 

 

 

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[Moorgan]

Bucs fans: "The Horror"

 

Great article again Philly!

 

Edit: Never get off the boat/bandwagon!

[Udogg]

Those shot's of Cam and Hochuli look like Bigfoot video.

[PhillyB]

Bucs fans: "The Horror"

the scene where martin sheen rolls upriver into brando's cambodian personality cult reminds me of the metairie exit ramp off of I-10

[SOJA]

I fuging busted out laughing after just the first paragraph. 11/10 would wipe myself down with my computer screen

 

Edit: forgot to add I'm in lecture right now

[PntherPryd]

Really entertaining and creative.  I am digging how you are contrasting history, any history, to each article and point(s) you are making and then, most impressively, tying them together in the wrap up.  I'm a fan of the short story and you are doing a great job.

I happen to agree with the no call on Cam.  There were some replays earlier this week on the huddle  from the far end zone that show the play more as Cam releasing the ball and then tripping as falling out of bounds.  The aints player barely had a hand on him and if so it was more of a way of keeping separation as he tried to figure out how he was going to land.  He even mostly avoided landing on him out of bounds.

 

I know it is hard to document but the frustration of having ref's miss obvious holding calls on the taints while throwing laundry every time our arms hit the level of their shoulders was my beef all game.

[TheRed]

Great work as usual.

That ball spot for the Saints was more egregious than much of anything that I've seen in awhile honestly. That is a game changing gaffe.

You can argue one way or another on the no call for Cam, but in general it was just a pitiful showing all afternoon from the refs.

[PhillyB]

Really entertaining and creative.  I am digging how you are contrasting history, any history, to each article and point(s) you are making and then, most impressively, tying them together in the wrap up.  I'm a fan of the short story and you are doing a great job.

I happen to agree with the no call on Cam.  There were some replays earlier this week on the huddle  from the far end zone that show the play more as Cam releasing the ball and then tripping as falling out of bounds.  The aints player barely had a hand on him and if so it was more of a way of keeping separation as he tried to figure out how he was going to land.  He even mostly avoided landing on him out of bounds.

 

I know it is hard to document but the frustration of having ref's miss obvious holding calls on the taints while throwing laundry every time our arms hit the level of their shoulders was my beef all game.

it seemed to me the saints player did some magic to make him trip, which is also illegal. should've been ejected imo.

of course, these kinds of things are much easier to swallow in the context of a fair game. had it not capped off three and a half quarters of just awful, awful calls it probably would've been easier to take. as it was fans had reached a tipping point. i've never heard such sustained booing through the tv before... people were pissed.

[Khyber53]

Excellent post and the best take on the bad calls, hands down. And you're right, when a team wins even when everything goes bad, it shows strength, character and promise. And yes, before we did require everything to go just about perfect for us to win.

This team has guts, thanks for putting it into perspective.

[Montsta]

These horrid ball spots by the refs are starting to worry me. One of these games Ron isn't gonna have any challenges left after using all of them up on shitty ball spotting by the zebras man. And they aren't even close. How often do you find yourself watching a Panthers game and you see the side judge come in a full yard, sometimes even more, off of the mark of where the play ended. It always seems to be short for our offense, and generous against our defense. 

It's frickin maddening to say the least. 

[SOJA]

 I love that Philly B points out how we overcame difficulties to win. We used to be masters of: "snapping defeat from the jaws of victory." We had an undeniably frustrating game on Sunday, but we won. The margin between winning and losing on Sunday seems small, but in the NFL that's all that matters, and shows just how much our team has grown.

[TheRed]

These horrid ball spots by the refs are starting to worry me. One of these games Ron isn't gonna have any challenges left after using all of them up on shitty ball spotting by the zebras man. And they aren't even close. How often do you find yourself watching a Panthers game and you see the side judge come in a full yard, sometimes even more, off of the mark of where the play ended. It always seems to be short for our offense, and generous against our defense. 

It's frickin maddening to say the least. 

Ron needs to take this to the NFL front office.

Challenging the ball spot is pretty pointless, it's pretty much always just going to end up another waste of a timeout we may end up needing later.

[PhillyB]

These horrid ball spots by the refs are starting to worry me. One of these games Ron isn't gonna have any challenges left after using all of them up on shitty ball spotting by the zebras man. And they aren't even close. How often do you find yourself watching a Panthers game and you see the side judge come in a full yard, sometimes even more, off of the mark of where the play ended. It always seems to be short for our offense, and generous against our defense. 

It's frickin maddening to say the least. 

yep. it was an obvious call to challenge and therefore hardly noteworthy as an obstacle by itself, but i included it because it's indicative of the kind of arbitration we dealt with between the whistles. it came at a time that negated its importance, but plenty of others did not.

awful day by double ed.

[PantherRN]

These horrid ball spots by the refs are starting to worry me. One of these games Ron isn't gonna have any challenges left after using all of them up on shitty ball spotting by the zebras man. And they aren't even close. How often do you find yourself watching a Panthers game and you see the side judge come in a full yard, sometimes even more, off of the mark of where the play ended. It always seems to be short for our offense, and generous against our defense. 

It's frickin maddening to say the least. 

It's infuriating! I've never been one to complain about officiating. I try to give the referees the benefit of the doubt, the game happens so fast, however, spotting the ball shouldn't be this difficult.

For instance the 3rd/4th and short quaterback sneek. The side judge is standing right there, and the play isn't that difficult to observe. Before it was a given that Cam was good for at least one or two yards. Now those fugers want to always spot him short a good half to a full yard of the spot he reached. I've seen refs spot him short multiple games already this season, and I'm starting to worry it might be a trend we have to battle all year...

If my son's first words aren't "that's bullshit!" I'll be pleasantly surprised haha!