The Dallas Cowboys and Seattle Seahawks gave fans an explosive offensive outing, with over 700 yards of combined offense and a whopping 76 points.
There were two other significant numbers that sparked heated fan conversations, though, during the Cowboys’ 41-35 win on Thursday Night Football. Those numbers were 19 and 257 — representing the number of penalties and penalty yards by both teams. And those numbers got fans ripping the officials on social media.
Officiating Had Some Problems During TNF
Missed calls, an enormous amount of flags, and the referees making themselves the stars of the show. Stop us if you have heard that one before.
Legendary announcer Al Michaels summed up this game perfectly when at one point, he was content to just let official Clete Blakeman take the mic from him and Kirk Herbstreit for the rest of the game.
“We’re going to take the rest of the night off and let Clete Blakeman call the game. You buying?” joked Michaels to Herbstreit.
“Sure,” Herbstreit responded.
While the game already saw a heavy dose of the yellow flag, some fans noticed some missed calls in helping fuel their critique of the officiating.
News personality Preston Moore caught a helmet-to-helmet hit by Quandre Diggs that was never called.
Quandre Diggs (one of my fav corners in the league) just got away with some nasty helmet-to-helmet on Jake Ferguson. pic.twitter.com/LbCFDESWyq
— Preston Moore (@prestoncmoore) December 1, 2023
One account pointed out how the league suspended Kareem Jackson for a similar hit, but this Diggs blast got overlooked.
ESPN NFL analyst and former quarterback Dan Orlovsky did not mince words about his thoughts on the officiating.
Officiating tonight is atrocious
— Dan Orlovsky (@danorlovsky7) December 1, 2023
One fan hoped for more self-awareness from the refs moving forward. “Refs need to be a bit more self aware that they are calling a lot of ticky tack calls and taking over the game,” the fan posted.
Reese’s Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy sent out this suggestion to the officiating crew at AT&T Park on Friday.
“NFL league office should make this officiating crew sit and watch TV copy replay of this game tomorrow like they were fans. Make them feel our pain,” Nagy posted.
Coming into the game, the Seahawks and Cowboys led the league in penalties. So we expected laundry to be thrown often in this one. However, when NFL fans need to rush to Google to find out if this game broke the record for most penalties thrown, you know we have a problem.
Penalty Problems for Both Teams
The Cowboys have been heavily penalized before this season. They saw 13 flags thrown at them on Sept. 24 alone. But was Dallas even more penalized against Seattle?
The Cowboys ended up with nine markers called on them. And they lost 127 yards off penalties. Seattle was more penalized at 10 markers against them, losing 130 yards.
MORE: What Is the Record for Most Penalties in an NFL Game?
No team in the league has surpassed 13 penalties in a game this season. But with both teams getting called for 19 total markers, it surpasses the Oct. 22 combined mark by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Atlanta Falcons at 18.
Dallas, meanwhile, ended up being called for more penalties compared to last Thursday’s contest that saw seven calls on them. Seattle was flagged for five markers in its Thanksgiving night loss to the San Francisco 49ers.
Even though the viewers were likely the ones that suffered the most thanks to the penalties, Seattle’s head coach Pete Carroll was not shy to criticize what he was seeing.
Amazon Prime reporter Kaylee Hartung spoke to Carroll about an issue that took place late in the first quarter and Carroll shared his disgust with the refs.
“[There] had [been] a couple calls that disturbed me,” the Super Bowl champion head coach said.
If he only knew what was to come.
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