Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll was not pleased with the officiating during his team’s loss to the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday night.
The Cowboys came from behind to beat Seattle in a thrilling 41-35 shootout at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The only thing that slowed the two teams down on offense was the officiating crew. There were a total of 19 accepted penalties in the game for 257 yards, which was the most combined penalty yardage in a game this season.
Carroll opened his postgame press conference with some criticism of the officials.
“It’s unfortunate that it feels like there was a whole ‘nother factor in this game,” Carroll said, via ESPN’s Brady Henderson. “I don’t know, you guys saw it a lot better than I did, but there was just way too many penalties in this game, for both sides. We’ve got to get out of that kind of football.”
In particular, Carroll felt the Seahawks were on the wrong end of one officiating “error” in the first half. The Seahawks had lined up for a 37-yard field goal attempt late in the first quarter but were flagged for delay of game. Carroll said the ball had been respotted on the play, which should have resulted in the play clock being reset. Myers had to attempt a 42-yard field goal instead and missed it.
“OK, what happened on that play was that officials moved the football from the middle to the hash, and they’re supposed to reset the clock, and they didn’t do it,” Carroll told reporters. “And so we’re griping about that and the time, it got me.”
Referee Clete Blakeman said in a pool report after the game that the play clock should not have been reset because what happened was just standard swapping of the scrimmage ball with the kicking ball. He said there was “no real delay” that would have warranted a reset of the play clock.
Whatever the case, Carroll is certainly not the only one who was unhappy with all the flags in an otherwise outstanding game. Even Al Michaels expressed frustration over it on the Amazon broadcast.
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