DANNY ONEIL

Shut up about Richard Sherman’s pass interference already

Oct 17, 2016, 11:43 AM | Updated: 12:08 pm

Officials didn't flag Richard Sherman for pass interference on Atlanta's final play, though they co...

Officials didn't flag Richard Sherman for pass interference on Atlanta's final play, though they could have. (AP)

(AP)

Richard Sherman could have been called for pass interference on Atlanta’s final offensive play.

He shouldn’t have been, however, and anyone who says otherwise is not only contributing to the decline of the NFL as we know it, but the further erosion of America’s super-power status.

I’m exaggerating, of course. Interest in the NFL isn’t going anywhere in spite of all this recent hand-wringing over the ratings.

Carroll on no-call: Contact between Sherman, Jones was ‘pretty incidental’

As for America, do you want to live in a country where a team can get down to its last play, have the quarterback throw the ball as far as he can to a double-covered teammate only to get bailed out because a defender happened to grab that receiver’s biceps while fighting for the ball?

Because I don’t want to live in that country, and I don’t want to watch that kind of game.

Guys fight for the ball on every pass play. There is contact on every pass play, and you can’t watch a deep incompletion without seeing a receiver, a coach or a quarterback motion for a flag to be thrown. The way the game is being called, we’re about one step away from requiring defenders to get out of a receiver’s way so he can try and catch the ball.

I’m in favor of watching players decide games, not penalties. If I wanted to watch a referee’s judgment dictate the outcome, I’d go watch soccer and all those flopping floppers feign gun-shot wounds whenever an opponent gets near their feet in hopes of “earning” a penalty kick.

Had officials flagged Sherman for pass interference, the Falcons would have had the ball at the Seattle 35 with 1:30 left, the Seahawks with just one timeout. Atlanta would have ran three plays, gained somewhere between 7 and 15 yards and lined up for a game-winning field-goal attempt.

Giving that kind of reward to an offense because of the defense’s overaggressive pursuit of a jump ball would only encourage more teams to huck and pray and if all else fails, plead for a penalty.

Defensive pass interference is like offensive holding. It could be called on pretty much every play. Doesn’t mean a penalty should never decide a football game, but it does mean that the infraction should be both egregious and intentional if it’s in a situation like Sunday. You can debate how obvious Sherman’s infraction was, but he was playing the ball, not his opponent.

But that’s not how football is watched in 2016. There’s no application of common sense. It is replayed in slow motion, dissected with rigid, letter-of-the-law analysis and then distilled down into 7-second video clips that are Tweeted and posted and used as evidence of officiating ignorance.

Yeah, because that’s what the NFL needs. More penalties.

And officiating by looking in the rear-view mirror is an absolutely endless rabbit hole. No sooner had most of the national football-watching public decided that Sherman got away with pass interference than Seahawks fans went and found the footage of Jones coming off the line on that play, clubbing Sherman in the helmet with a left cross to show that the Falcons receiver had gotten away with illegal hands-to-the-face.

Jones could have been called for a penalty on that play, too. He shouldn’t have been, though.

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Shut up about Richard Sherman’s pass interference already