The NFL has officially become flag football, fans are fuming & MLB makes a baffling call ahead of the playoffs
'Nightcaps' is a daily column that catches you up on the biggest sports, news and culture stories you may have missed while pretending to do work at your desk. It runs Monday-Friday on OutKick.com.
Final Monday of September. This is it, folks. We're a few days away from October. First full month of football just about in the books.
And now we have the MLB postseason on deck?! Along with more football? How lucky are we? What a country. Goodness, we are blessed.
Solid weekend of sports, right? The golf world is breathing a sigh of relief today after the fellas avoided a catastrophe yesterday. The college football world was, once again, treated to absolute cinema for about 12 hours on Saturday. I actually thought the NFL had a really nice bounce back Sunday after a lackluster Week 2 ...
Except for the officiating. It completely ruined everything, as it tends to do. It was just bad call after bad call. I was stunned at what I saw in yesterday's Dolphins-Chiefs game. Stunned. Somehow, it got even worse in last night's thriller in Denver.
It's just so, unfathomably bad at this point. And there is no accountability. It's disgusting. We'll dive in here in a bit.
But first, welcome to a Monday Nightcaps — the one where you officially cannot touch, breath, or even look at a quarterback in the National Football League anymore. Sad.
What else? I've got Cam Ward being quite possibly the biggest bust of my lifetime, a ballboy in Jacksonville picking a fight with a massive defensive end over a football, and how about the BS move Major League Baseball pulled this weekend?
Is Manfred serious with this? What a joke. You'll see.
OK, let's get this class — and week — started. It's a Monday night, after all. We've got MORE football to watch.
Grab you a beer for National Drink Beer Day (solid holiday!) and settle in for a Monday 'Cap!
Let's go ahead and jump right in. No beating around the bush on this final Monday of September.
So, the horrible Miami Dolphins lost to the not-horrible Kansas City Chiefs yesterday in a game that was surprisingly close. Credit to Miami for looking markedly better. Credit to the Chiefs for still covering the spread.
Win-win!
Miami actually had a legit shot to win this game, believe it or not. Trailing 17-10 to start the fourth quarter, the Dolphins had the Chiefs backed up into their own end zone on third and long. Patrick Mahomes dropped back to pass, and was absolutely crushed by Chop Robinson, forcing an incomplete pass.
It looked like a textbook quarterback hit, which is nearly impossible to do given the ridiculous rules nowadays. Helmet to the chest, and putting the arms out on the way down to catch himself as to not land on Mahomes with his full body weight.
Again — stupid rules — but Chop appeared to follow them to a tee ...
Key word there being "appeared."
What are we doing here? Seriously. It's just so silly at this point. If that's a penalty, the defenders truly have no chance in this league. None. WHAT is he supposed to have done differently?
And by the way, I'm not saying it was the wrong call. It wasn't. It was the right call.
The RULE itself is mind-numbingly stupid. Here's Rule 12, Section 2, Article 11(b) in the NFL rulebook:
A rushing defender is prohibited from committing such intimidating and punishing acts as "stuffing" a passer into the ground or unnecessarily wrestling or driving him down after the passer has thrown the ball, even if the rusher makes his initial contact with the passer within the one-step limitation provided for in (a) above.
When tackling a passer who is in a defenseless posture (i.e. before, during, or after throwing or attempting a pass), a defensive player must not unnecessarily or violently throw him down or land on top of him with all or most of the defender’s weight. Instead, the defensive player must strive to fall to the side of the passer’s body, or to brace his fall with his arms to avoid landing on the passer with all or most of his body weight.
It's just such a silly rule. "All or most of his body weight." What does that even mean? That's the most subjective rule I've ever seen.
How does a ref determine how much body weight one is falling with? Between this and the ridiculous pass interference call that cost the Rams the game last night, it was just a really poor Sunday for NFL refs.
And I mean REALLY poor:
Just horrible. I said it last year. I said it the year before. I've said it every year for a decade now: NFL officiating is ruining the game. So are the rules.
It's insane. Frankly, it's sad.
OK, let's move it along and check in with last year's first overall pick, Cam Ward!
Speaking of bad NFL Sundays ...
I've never seen a quarterback do that before. Ever. What is that? Cam Ward, by the way, is now 3-17 as a starter. Pretty big sample size at this point.
And he's still acting like THAT? Hey, buddy, why don't you RUN if there's that much time back there and you're bored? Ever think about that? Maybe do a little scrambling and figure something out?
Same with the goal line play at the end. He had the pylon right in front of him. Just keep running! Instead, he just throws a duck to the Giants and it was curtains.
The No. 2 pick behind Ward last year? That would be Travis Hunter.
Speaking of Hunter, let's rapid-fire this Monday class into a big night of FOOTBALL. Congrats on your first career INT, Travis!
Just a weird Sunday in the NFL, right? What's going on here? Why is this guy getting so defensive?
"Hey! Don't touch me! Do not touch me!" he says as he tries to slap 6-foot-5, 255-pound Josh Hines-Allen away. Good luck, pal. You're gonna need it!
Here's the best part ... that wasn't even the weirdest part of that game yesterday! Anyone see what Trevor Lawrence pulled with 8 minutes left?
Couple things here ...
OK, on the way out, let's quickly check in on how Major League Baseball treated the final Sunday of the season for the Red Sox and Yankees ahead of their Wild Card Series this week:
For those who missed it, the Red Sox and Cubs had to fly to Florida to play Game 162 at Tropicana Field yesterday. It was a meaningless game, as both teams had already clinched everything they could clinch.
The Yanks and Orioles, meanwhile, got rained out and MLB told them not to worry about it.
Okeedokee! Makes sense.
Whatever. MLB postseason starts tomorrow. Four games, all day long, beginning at 2 p.m. with Braves-Phils. Can't wait.
Nothing better than some playoff baseball.
Sox in 3.
Now, let's have a week.