If the New York Giants don’t make the playoffs, they can blame NFL officials.
While that’s not my mindset, I’m merely mimicking Philadelphia Eagles players and scribes following their overtime loss to the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday. The various responses range from condescending to conspiracy theories to downright obnoxious. And trust me, it’s not a look I’m trying to emulate for the New York Giants.
First, I would hope that none of the Giants beat writers and electronic media personnel would go “all-in” on making a Big Blue loss about the officials. But that exactly what several media folks who cover the Eagles are doing right now.
Even more, the primary play in question was on the opening kickoff. That means that 59+ minutes of football was irrelevant for the defending World Champions.
According to NBC Sports Philadelphia, Eagles captain Malcolm Jenkins had this to say about the NFL command center:
“Whoever’s watching that in New York should stay off the bottle.”
In this age of hyper-political correctness, Mr. Jenkins should sit out a game, and offer an apology, as well as pay a fine. If an official said something similar about a player, then NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith would take issue with it immediately. But Jenkins gets to run his mouth, using a personal insult, with assuredly minimal consequence.
Hmmm, personal insult, and the media double-standard clearly still appears. Don’t like the person, make a comment a big deal. I we still have to cover Jenkins as part of our “job”, then let’s act like it didn’t happen.
Actually, it’s worse than that, the Philly media encouraged and glorified this personal insult.
Even worse
In my mind, even worse than whining players are team beat writers who take up asinine causes for teams and players. That brings us to good old Reuben Frank, who will still have to pay for a ticket in Canton when he retires.
Frank wrote this, per NBC Sports Philadelphia:
“It’s hard to imagine a worse call. And it may have cost the Eagles a win over the Cowboys and potentially a playoff berth.”
And they want to call themselves World Champions?
A call on the opening kickoff cost one team the game? Either Mr. Frank is playing to the least common denominator, or he’s intent on boosting his click count. Either way, it’s totally bush league coverage.
As for Jenkins and the Eagles, keep whining. The officials didn’t lose seven games for you, you did. In your Week 12 win against the New York Giants, you got to clutch and grab Odell Beckham like a stuffed animal at Christmas.
The zebras missed an obvious tripping call that not only would have given the Giants another un-timed down on the game’s final play. What’s worse, the illegal play injured Beckham.
Sure we wrote about the officiating later on, but no one ever said it cost Big Blue the game, or the playoffs!
Good teams overcome their own mistakes, and possible officiating mistakes. Good teams overcome coaching mistakes. And World Champions, well, they don’t whine about being robbed, unless of course, they simply are too dependent on serendipity.
Welcome to the world of the Philadelphia Eagles. Cry Eagles cry.
