Referee under the spotlight in Seahawks win, Niners stuggles continue

Article by Rob Newell

Outside the fanatical support of the twelves, in recent years the Seattle Seahawks have become one of the more unpopular franchises in the NFL, in part admittedly as a result of the success enjoyed by the team, but mainly because of decisions like the one that went in the Seahawks favour at the end of their game with the Detroit Lions this past weekend, the latest in a series of decisions that started with the so called Fail Mary a few years ago.  Now, I know Seahawks fans will still point back to their Super Bowl defeat to the Pittsburgh Steelers and some of the calls that went against them in that game, but the big decisions have gone their way in recent years, and that combined with some of the antics of Richard Sherman and co. have caused frustration in other fanbases.

The Seahawks, like the Patriots, won’t care of course, and nor should they! And following the 0-2 start they have got themselves back to .500 on the back of the non flag!  The winless Detroit Lions will not really be satisfied with the apology offered by NFL head of officiating Dean Blandino, for the mistakes made by the officials on the field, and if the Seahawks should go on to clinch the NFC West or even Home Field advantage by one game, you can rest assured the rest of the NFC will be reminding the league of this game and looking for changes in this central referral system.

Meanwhile, the San Francisco 49ers fell to 1-3, but at least were not embarrassed as they had been the previous two weeks, something that with Aaron Rodgers coming to town with his undefeated Green Bay Packers, must have been a concern.  Remember those 49ers teams of lore, the Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Ronnie Lott led teams, this team is nothing like those, and those players busts must be spinning in the Hall of Fame as a result.  Instead the 2015 Niners are more like an early 90’s Bill Parcells team, to succeed they need to be able to run the ball and spell the defense, and pretty much have to play error free football.  With Colin Kaepernick at QB that feels like a bit of an ask! This team needs more of a game manager than anything else at QB but in Colin Kaepernick and Blaine Gabbert I am not convinced they have that on the roster, instead they are going to have to hope that Carlos Hyde can find holes to exploit and the rest of the defence step up to the standard of the returning Navarro Bowman.

In the divisional game of the week, the previously undefeated Arizona Cardinals went down to the St Louis Rams who welcomed Todd Gurley to the NFL prime time, he had a few snaps last week but this was the big introduction / coming out party, and Gurley went over 100 yard for the first of what should be many times, however the damage was done on the scoreboard at least by Tavon Austin, maybe the Rams have finally figured out how to use their offensive weapon.  The Cardinals mounted a furious rally to come back in the 4^th quarter but ultimately came up 2 points short. 

The Cardinals shouldn’t be too upset as a result of this, whereas the Rams are perhaps the schizophrenic team of the league, one week they can beat the Seahawks and the Cardinals, thus gaining for themselves a great divisional record, but they can just as easily lose to the Redskins! Which is the real Rams? Can they learn to play on the road? Maybe this weekend in Green Bay will reveal the answers to those questions.