It’s just the first game of the NFL’s Super Wild Card Weekend but this may very well be the biggest talking point of the week. Near the end of the first half in the Raiders-Bengals game, a whistle was blown during a play.
As players are conditioned to do when they hear a whistle, they stopped. Problem was the Bengals kept playing, Joe Burrow threw to Tyler Boyd, who caught the ball in the end zone. Despite the whistle, the refs ruled a touchdown (even though the play should’ve been dead) and it was a massive seven points for the Bengals in a game where the refs have been rather terrible.
Maybe an audio sync issue or some other glitch, but you could definitely hear a whistle mid-pass on the broadcast. pic.twitter.com/FZctJVMtLd
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 15, 2022
Other than many Bengals fans who are saying it wouldn’t have mattered, social media was livid with the sequence of events. From the play itself to the fact that NBC commentators Mike Tirico and Drew Brees took over 10 minutes to even acknowledge a whistle actually blew during the play, it was a mess all around.
Tirico 15 minutes later: oh wait that whistle during the Bengals TD was weird.
Brees: Yeah, I definitely heard it. Seemed like people stopped.
NBC ref guy: Yeah that whistle was when the ball was in the air, the TD shouldn’t have counted.
Great stuff. Send them all the Emmys.
— Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) January 15, 2022
The ref who blew the whistle, immediately after blowing the whistle: pic.twitter.com/QljhBIEMl7
— #RingerNFL (@ringernfl) January 15, 2022
Jerome Boger is getting the inadvertant whistle out of the newscycle by screwing up on every play. It's called 4D chess and I'm sorry you guys can't appreciate it.
— Kevin Clark (@bykevinclark) January 15, 2022
Im honestly shocked no fans ever bring there own whistles to important basketball games. You get one whistle before u get kicked out but you could legitimately win your team a game
— PFT Commenter (@PFTCommenter) January 15, 2022
The refs after the whistle was blown pic.twitter.com/4icjyoCfpY
— Pickswise (@Pickswise) January 15, 2022
The irony of the outrage over the inadvertent whistle TD is if it had instead REMOVED a TD there would be much more deserved outrage
— Jake Liscow (@JakeLiscow) January 15, 2022
The Refs got together as said “say bruh that whistle didn’t have a dang thing to do with that touchdown and we down bad for blowing it (pause)”…
Cincy TD
— Ryan Clark (@Realrclark25) January 15, 2022
"The Whistle" (2022)
A rag-tag group of goofball criminals band together to try and fix a football game. Shenanigans occur. pic.twitter.com/DNnehY9hHq
— Will Brinson (@WillBrinson) January 15, 2022
OK, no debate there was absolutely a whistle. And the DBs seemed to react. I guess the broadcast is just going to pretend it didn’t happen. Cool cool. https://t.co/GqVlUZRSzM
— nick wright (@getnickwright) January 15, 2022
https://twitter.com/Foxworth24/status/1482487652096131074?s=20
[Photo: @WillBrinson]
