Make no mistake about it - the only headline that truly matters from Sunday is New England (4-2) getting their third consecutive victory as quarterback Drake Maye continues his ascension into the upper echelon of elite players at his position.
The Patriots follow-up their massive Week 5 win in Buffalo (4-1) with a 25-19 win down in New Orleans (1-5), showing their big boy performance on Sunday Night Football wasn’t just a fluke, and that this version of the Patriots is capable of stringing together some wins as the season rolls along.
Within that headlining performance from Maye and the Patriots was an objectively bad showing from the officiating crew, highlighted by a phantom offensive pass interference call on Stefon Diggs in the first quarter negating an electrifying 61-yard touchdown catch for DeMario Douglas, which would have been his second 50+ yard touchdown in as many possessions.
Even CBS rules analyst Gene Steratore, famously someone who always takes the side of the refs when sharing his analysis, could not hide the fact that this was a mystifying penalty.
“Guys, tough to make sense of this one,” said Steratore when asked for his read on the situation. “The defensive player reaches out, engages with Diggs. It's just a hand. There's no advantage. Don't think there's offensive pass interference there at all, fellas.”
Sunday saw a constant stream of missed calls, make-up calls, necessary red flags, missed fumbles - you name it, the refs weren’t on it.
Even with how good his quarterback played on Sunday, the ineptitude of the officiating on Sunday had to be asked about when Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel joined The Greg Hill Show on Monday morning.
“How can they fix this?” asked WEEI’s Chris Curtis.
“I got a tough enough job to coach this football team,” Vrabel said with a laugh. “There's not much. It becomes comical, at a point.
“They send these videos out every week, and they do a great job. [Club communications liaison} Walt Anderson does a great job, [head of officiating] Ramon George does a great job. And they send these videos out. And, of course, me and Stretch [VP of football operations and strategy John Streicher], we hang on to every word. And then I'll see something in the game, I'm like, ‘Did they even watch the video?’ Like, me and Stretch - we're pausing it, rewinding it, like, ‘Ah, I love these videos.’ And then I'm like, ‘Hey, did you watch the video last week? Like, they talked about this exact thing.’ Me and Stretch watch them."
It sounds like the NFL officiating office needs to start employing the same strategy the Oakland Raiders used back in the day on JaMarcus Russell, where they purposely would give him blank game tapes to study to see if he would actually notice there was no material to work with.
Famously, he never noticed. And that’s why the former No. 1 overall pick flamed out of the league after only three seasons.
It sounds like Anderson and George might have a preparation issue among their officiating crews, and that Vrabel and Streicher may have been instrumental in discovering this problem.
We’ll see if the Patriots get a better set of zebras in Week 7, as they’ll hit the road for a third consecutive week for a game in Nashville against the Titans (1-5).
As of publishing, the Patriots are a 6.5-point favorite at FanDuel. You can get them on the moneyline at -330, and the total sits at 41.5.
Tune in each and every Monday throughout the football season to Patriots Monday on WEEI. Head coach Mike Vrabel joins The Greg Hill Show at 6:30 a.m. ET, and quarterback Drake Maye joins WEEI Afternoons.