New England Patriots: 5 observations from win over Dolphins

Three Blind Mice

The referees yesterday disgraced the stripes. Ed Hochuli is getting a migraine just thinking about how poorly they performed yesterday. That’s not bias speaking, either. They were bad for both teams.

Dolphins fans were outraged at a call that gave the Patriots the football after an apparent fumble. The refs conferred and awarded the Patriots the ball.

Similarly, the Patriots recovered a fumble early on and took it to the house, but the refs called the runner down by contact. The Patriots did not challenge the play, resulting in a Dolphins ball.

One of the weirdest plays, however, was when the Patriots were going to punt the football and the play clock mysteriously reset. What was up with that? It felt like the play took forever. The referees should have called a delay of game, and that would have been that.

Instead, we have Dolphins fans crying “cheating” on social media because of a clock malfunction. Oh well.

Refs are a factor for both teams, and in this case both teams were negatively affected. It’s one of those things that teams can’t control, so they do their best not to worry about them. Unfortunately, the stripes didn’t perform when the lights were on. Happens.