Internet Reacts to Super Bowl Officiating
Super Bowl LVII ended up playing out to be an instant classic between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles. Both the momentum of the game and lead swung back and forth to each team multiple times in a gripping contest that deserves to go down as one of the all-time great games in NFL history.
However, as fans have gotten all too used to lately, the spectacular performance put on by both teams was marred by officiating decisions. One of the calls was a questionable over turnings of a pass that was called a completion on the field to Alabama's own Devonta Smith.
There's no questioning that the call was certainly debatable in either direction, but many felt that there shouldn't have been enough evidence to overturn the call on the field.
There was another play overturned by replay that didn't appear to have enough evidence to move away from the call on the field, but it went in favor of the losing team, so there has been less outrage about it, and that was when linebacker Nick Bolton's second scoop-and-score of an Eagles fumble was overturned.
Then the big one came. In the waning minutes of the fourth quarter, the Chiefs found themselves in the red zone and the Eagles had burned all of their timeouts. On third down, Patrick Mahomes threw an incomplete pass far out of his receivers reach, but a yellow flag came out at the end of the play.
In a shocking turn of events, James Bradberry had been flagged for holding for what appeared to be a gentle - possibly even inadvertent - jersey tug. Many fans felt that even though the call was justifiable, it was way too tacky tack for that moment in that game and ruined what was one of the greatest Super Bowls ever played.