THE NFL CANNOT EMBRACE GAMBLING AND HAVE BAD OFFICIATING

A weekend of compelling story lines — the dysfunctional Cowboys, a fun renaissance in Cincinnati, the Super Bowl dream of the Bills — was distracted by (you'll never guess) a controversial whistle

     Just consider the football topics we could be discussing today. You know, those actually involving football. Such as how Jerry Jones can be so adept at acquiring wealth and power — latest net worth: $11 billion — yet fail so miserably when it comes to hiring coaches and running his dysfunctional franchise. Which happens first: Boss Jerry fades away in his 80s or Dak Prescott loses what's left of his hairline?

     Or, such as, the pastel-tinted glasses of Joe Burrow, who wasn't yet conceived when Joe Montana retired from the sport but already has usurped a nickname — Joe Cool — that tragically wasn't trademarked. And how coach Zac Taylor turned back time to a bygone era, after the Bengals ended the longest postseason winless streak in North America's four major pro sports, by taking a game ball to the Cincinnati bar he passes on his commute home, Mt. Lookout Tavern, and declaring, "This is the first of many playoff games we win here.'' He asked his sons not to film the scene.

     "Sure enough, I get in there and there are a thousand cell phones,'' said Taylor, discovering the viral world. "I don't know what I was thinking was going to happen.''

     Or the rise of the Buffalo Bills and their deranged mafia of fans, who should be forewarned that their favorite tailgating pastime — jumping onto and breaking folding tables — might be a prosecutable offense if they do so before Super Bowl LVI at foofoo SoFi Stadium. Or the fact Tom Brady (have you heard he's 44 years old?) will not be colliding with Bill Belichick for a championship in Los Angeles, which saddens some of us and thrills others.

     Or, returning to the Dallas debacle, what possessed the Cowboys to stop riddling the 49ers with passes that stopped the clock and order a designed draw for Prescott that gained 17 yards to San Francisco's 24-yard line … but left only eight seconds to score a potential game-winning touchdown with no timeouts remaining? Rather than follow protocol and locate the official who would take the ball and spot it so Dallas would have time for another play, Prescott handed it to center Tyler Biadasz, who placed the ball on the ground as apoplectic fans shrieked and the seconds ticked away. By the time umpire Ramon George shoved Prescott out of the way and hustled to spot the ball, time expired as an overpaid quarterback spiked the ball. The 23-17 loss should spell a fitting end to the messy, erratic, discipline-lacking, penalty-filled tenure of Mike McCarthy, giving way to Jones' seventh head coach since Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer won three titles way back in the 1990s.

     The fans pelted the referees with trash and bottles, prompting Prescott to say, irresponsibly: "Oh, well credit to them, then.'' Jones, normally given to ref-ripping, had it right when he made no excuses and said he rarely has been more disappointed in a loss. "This was a game where we needed to show. We needed to make this happen. When you have a team like this, we've got to get it done,'' he said. Of firing McCarthy, Jones said, "I don't even want to discuss anything like that at this particular time.''

     After which he headed to his cave and called Sean Payton in New Orleans. I'm only half-kidding, and if Payton wisely says no, offensive coordinator Kellen Moore will become the next soon-to-be former coach. But Prescott's mad dash was Moore's idea, approved by McCarthy, who assumed the New York replay office would put more time on the clock. Wrong. "The umpire was simply spotting the ball properly,'' referee Alex Kemp said. "He collided with the players as he was setting the ball because he was moving it to the proper spot.''

     Said McCarthy, who said the offense works extensively on designed draws in practice: "We had a lot of confidence trying to set up that last play, but yes, our execution was not where we would have liked it to have been, clearly. (But) I have never seen that come down the way it came down as far as the collision between the umpire and quarterback. We were trying to get inside the 30-yard line to set up the last play. The mechanics were intact, I felt, from our end of it. Communication that I was given on the sideline when they were reviewing it is they were going to put time back on the clock. The next thing I know, they’re running off the field. (The play call) was the right decision. Just like anything, the execution and the officiating spotting the ball wasn’t in tune. We should not have had any trouble getting the ball spotted there.''

     File it away. The officials got that one right.

     The story lines are plentiful, and wild card weekend — excuse me, Super Wild Card Weekend!!! — still isn't finished. But … this being the National Football League, we are left to ask the same old, low-rent, logic-obliterating question: How does a monstrous American corporation that commands a $113-billion bonanza for media rights, a league that embraces legal gambling like a first-born, allow any playoff game to be swallowed by shoddy, bargain-basement officiating?

     Answer: The NFL is too stinking big to care.

     When we should have been feeling wonderful about the Bengals, who'd been forgotten by all but family and friends during a 31-year drought, the focus instead was on a whistle in the Paul Brown Stadium din. As confirmed by an indisputable NBC video/audio replay — though it took several minutes for a sleepy Mike Tirico and a misplaced Drew Brees to say so in the broadcast booth — an official's whistle blew on the sideline as Burrow clearly remained inbounds while throwing a 10-yard touchdown pass to Tyler Boyd. The visiting Las Vegas Raiders, trying to win a permanent gig for beloved interim coach Rich Bisaccia amid a season of uncommon upheaval, were certain enough of the whistle that players protested on the field. Once an official sounds his whistle, even if by error, the ball must be declared dead immediately, according to the NFL rulebook.

     But when an officiating crew headed by Jerome Boger huddled, the zebras concluded the whistle came after Boyd caught the ball. Yep, the official in question would not fess up that he'd indeed created the shrill, high-pitched sound from the device attached to his lips. Nor would his colleagues acknowledge they'd heard the whistle, though the Raiders did. So because an erroneous whistle is not reviewable, according to Rule 15, the touchdown held up when it should have been disallowed — in a game the Bengals won by seven points, 26-19.

     There is so much wretchedly wrong here, I should pause for primal scream therapy. Why would a professional official lie or demur about blowing his whistle, and why did Boger not demand a truthful answer? Were they trying to avoid controversy and riling a passionate, sellout crowd starved for success? And why oh why is an erroneous whistle not reviewable when technology makes the process easy and the NFL is committed, in a get-it-fricking-right era, to reviewing almost every other conceivable play in a game? But once again, the league allowed yet another former referee employed by a TV network, Terry McAulay, to instruct 20 million viewers about what was so confusing in the stadium.

     "They can't have a touchdown on that play, by rule,'' said McAulay, who thought the play shouldn't have counted, with the ball placed at the Raiders 10.

     The snafu became messier after the game when Walt Anderson, the NFL's senior vice president of officiating and another former referee, confirmed only that Boger's crew screwed up. "We confirmed with the referee and the crew that on that play — they got together and talked — they determined that they had a whistle, but that the whistle for them on the field was blown after the receiver caught the ball,” Anderson said. "They did not feel that the whistle was blown before the receiver caught the ball.''

     Did not feel?

     If they are "feeling'' and not knowing, they shouldn't be working in the NFL, much less in a playoff game. But this is what happens, much too often, when the league reduces officiating to a part-time job. Basically, the refs are moonlighting, working barely half the year, from the middle of May to the end of a season. The most senior officials are paid well, around $205,000 for the year, but many are older and almost all have other jobs during the season. Why not employ them for 12 months, double their pay — the league can afford it, duh — and conduct seminars and exercise regimens between games during the week? When officials are selling insurance Monday through Friday, they're not going to be at optimum efficiency and sharpness on weekends.

     A professional sports league is pro wrestling if it lacks integrity. And the quality of officiating performances, or lack thereof, takes on more importance as the league and its media partners wave sportsbook cocaine in front of the country's problem gamblers. That number has increased considerably during the pandemic, with studies estimating that five million Americans are flat-out addicted to gambling and that as many as 20 million allow habits to interfere with their work and social lives. Since the Supreme Court recklessly decided to ruin more lives and legalize sports gambling four years ago, more than $87 billion has been legally bet on sports — according to the Washington Post. In a country of 330 million people, more than 40 million bettors placed legal wagers during the NFL regular season, with the playoffs and Super Bowl attracting exponentially more.

     Commissioner Roger Goodell and the owners can't be so quick to rake in the betting money, then plant doubtful seeds in the heads of gamblers. Imagine being in a sportbook — or in someone's living room — when McAulay said Burrow's touchdown pass shouldn't have counted. Six times a game, the NFL allows networks to show gambling ads and feed the frenzy; enough states have legalized gambling, with many more to come, that 112 million Americans can wager on phones. Big Tobacco was forced to include warning labels in advertising and on cigarette packs. Big Football is untouchable.

     "I have enough problem doing my job. I can’t do the officiating, too,'' said Biasscia, who likely would have had the interim tag removed — and earned a lucrative, life-changing contract — with a victory.

     "We heard a whistle,'' Raiders defensive end Maxx Crosby said. "The ref said (Burrow) was out, and then they said it was a touchdown — and then there was no review.''

     Typically, as social media exploded, the league leaked its disapproval of Boger and his crew and said they won't work again this postseason. Spin control and belated apologies don't work in 2022. The public is too sophisticated not to think the worst.

     Did an official, in a legal gambling culture, have money on the game? And how many others might, too? 

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     Jay Mariotti, called “the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.