The NFL officiating crew didn’t actually hand the Rams the Lombardi Trophy in Super Bowl LVI Sunday evening in Los Angeles.
It just kinda felt that way.
The men in the stripped shirts didn’t seemingly “let ‘em play” for the first 58 minutes of an ultra-competitive game before releasing a flurry of flags in the final couple minutes to inject themselves into the story and ensure the focus wasn’t solely on the players and coaches.
It just kinda felt that way.
The funny thing is it feels like it’s always something with NFL officiating crews. This isn’t to say NFL officials stink at their jobs.
It just kinda feels that way.
After calling just three penalties in the first three-plus quarters of what was a tight, hard-fought battle between the built-to-win-now Rams and the never-won-a-thing Bengals, it was unfortunately referee Ronald Torbert and his crew that took center stage with all the world a watching in the closing minutes of a down-to-the-wire Super Bowl that for a change didn’t include the Patriots.
With Cincinnati clawing to hold onto a 20-16 lead and L.A. driving toward big game glory, Torbert’s crew stepped into the spotlight to throw flags on three consecutive plays inside the 10-yard line.
None was bigger than the first. On a Rams third-and-goal from the 8-yard line, Matthew Stafford’s throw for Cooper Kupp was defended by Bengals linebacker Logan Wilson.
That should have set up a truly historic moment, a fourth-and-goal with Super Bowl rings and legacies on the line.
Only it didn’t because Tolbert and Co. had other plans. Wilson was flagged for what could be at best described as a ticky-tack defensive holding call. That’s at best. At worst, it was an horrific call in any spot of any game, but certainly with the Super Bowl on the line.
Either way, it gave the Rams an automatic first down. It might as well have given them the game.
After three more penalty calls in the next two plays – yes, the officials gave everyone the flags they paid tens of thousands of dollars per ticket to see! – Stafford eventually hit the would-be Super Bowl MVP Kupp for the game-winning, history-altering touchdown.
What a game!
Can you believe how awesome those penalty flags were in the final two minutes!!!!?????
We can all remember where we were and who we were with when Tolbert displayed his greatness!
Gotta get online now to order one of those No. 62 referee shirts before they sell out.
Forget wanting to see if Stafford could get the Detroit monkey off his back and enter the Hall of Fame QB conversation with a ring to legitimize his stat-happy resume.
Never mind hoping Joe Burrow would stamp his name into the record books in just his second NFL season, a first step down a path paved by the elite likes of Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes in recent decades.
Nah, we’ve seen quarterbacks and players win and lose Super Bowls for more than five decades. Like the halftime show, that’s so 1990s.
These days it’s much better to have something new, to have a Super Bowl decided by over officious officials in the closing minutes.
Except it doesn’t feel like anything new. If kinda feels like business as usual in the NFL.
It kinda feels like the officials are, unfortunately, always a big part of the story.
So it’s probably maddeningly appropriate that closing out maybe the best, most competitive postseason in NFL history and capping another hype-worthy Super Bowl battle, that the officials were a big part of the story at SoFi Stadium Sunday night.
Maybe NFL officials don’t actually suck at their jobs.
It just kinda feels that way the morning after Super Bowl LVI.
