ode
Don’t go that far. It was OP. The receiver clearly created intentional separation with his arm by pushing the defender away just as the ball was entering the picture.
THAT is offensive pass interference.
The issue however is that the league, despite the use of replay, despite the intent behind “getting it right” with having PROOF that backs the referees up, still doesn’t like being put in the position of having judgement calls determine a game. Even if it’s not so much a judgment call versus a missed no-call.
What the receiver did was flagrant i.e. obvious, walks talks and quacks. The league said phuk it, not our problem... the defender should’ve played patticake right along with him.
The officiating has only gotten worse since replay. How that has been allowed to happen - I have no idea, because it was instituted in large part to make sure that games were not decided because of bad calls.
As we saw last year, no calls are often times much worse than bad calls!
Get rid of IR, hire full-time officials. Whatever happens happens. That’s what is essentially happening now except it is adding 40 minutes to the telecast.