Saturday’s thrilling game between the Buffalo Bills and the Denver Broncos was marred by a bit of controversy after what appeared to be a deep reception for the Bills was instead ruled a game-changing interception. Needless to say, Bills head coach Sean McDermott was not happy about the whole process.
After the game, McDermott did not hold back on the officiating as he expressed his displeasure with the call as well as the entire review process – or lackthereof.
“So obviously, I don’t have the power to challenge, right? We’re in overtime, so the flag is not an option to throw it down. So I called a timeout to try and get the process to slow down because it seemed like the process was not slowing down. It was a rather rapid unfolding of the review, if there was a review. And so I called a timeout to try and slow it down,” McDermott said via Awful Announcing.
“It would seem logical to me. It would seem logical to me… that the head official would walk over and want to go and take a look at it just to make sure that everybody from here who is in the stadium to there are on the same page. That’s too big of a play, in my estimation, and a play that decided the game potentially as well, to not even slow it down. And that’s why I had to call the timeout. It’s not what I wanted to do, but I had to do it in order to make sure that I understood what was going on and that they did take a look at it.
“It’s hard for me to understand why it was ruled the way it was ruled. If it is ruled that way, then why wasn’t it slowed down just to make sure that we have this right? That would have made a lot of sense to me, to make sure that we have this thing right. Because that’s a pivotal play in the game. We have the ball at the 20, maybe kicking a game-winning field goal right there. So I’ll just leave it at that.
“But I’m saying it because I’m standing up for Buffalo, damn it. I’m standing up for us. Because what went on is not… That is not how it should go down, in my estimation. These guys spent three hours out there playing football, pouring their guts out, to not even say, ‘Hey, let’s just slow this thing down.’ That’s why I’m bothered.”
After the game, the referees defended the call, but it’s safe to say that fans were not in agreement.
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