A game tabbed must-see television between the Philadelphia Eagles and Miami Dolphins lived up to the hype, though the Eagles did win rather convincingly, closing the game 31-17 on their home field.
One key area to look at is penalties, of which the Dolphins had 10 (70 yards) and the Eagles had none. With such a split, either the Dolphins were remarkably undisciplined compared to their opponents, or something fishy is going on...
Fins fans are thinking the latter, taking to Twitter to call out some of the calls that appeared more egregious or perhaps even biased.
Dolphins Twitter is livid over missed calls
One Dolphins fan threaded clips of all the penalties he disagreed with on X (formerly Twitter).
Here's a description of his reasoning throughout the thread:
- Roughing the passer: Dolphins fan thinks player let up before the hit
- Face mask against Cedrick Wilson Jr. by James Bradberry
- A Tweet collection of four clips: An Eagles player too far behind the line, an Eagles apparent hold still image, and then the face mask referenced before twice
- A missed Eagles pass interference
- A missed Eagles hold
- Another missed Eagles hold
- A "choke" (missed hold)
- A Jalen Carter flop (which Carter admitted after the game)
Some of the above complaints are a bit nit-picky. In particular, No. 1 is called all the time in today's NFL. The lineman too far behind the line referenced in No. 3 is typically not called unless it's egregious and happening on every play. PI in No. 4 is missed often (and that play, in particular, was up for debate). Holds happen frequently, and it's not uncommon for them to go uncalled. Referees have to balance managing the flow of the game to some degree.
Any of these calls in isolation might be missed in any game by any official. But all of them in totality being missed and the Eagles getting no flags called on them the entire night is certainly a reason for Dolphins fans to be irked.
Mike McDaniel, Dolphins coach, didn't seem to take any issue with the officiating after the game.
"You can't be minus-10 in penalties," McDaniel said. "You can't just point a finger and say 'that's not fair,' that doesn't make any sense to me. It's more about looking at ourselves, the stuff that we can control and what things that we can clean up in our game."
Claims were made online on Sunday night that Duane Heydt, one of the officials who worked Sunday's game and grew up north of Philadelphia, was the source of several calls. Heydt is from Pennsylvania, however, Heydt hasn't lived in the area in, "decades." Where he grew up is also nearly equidistant to MetLife Stadium. It's reasonable he could have grown up as a fan of any number of teams, the Steelers, Eagles, Giants and Jets all in play simply looking at locality.
He now resides in South Carolina.
Others claimed that Heydt was once part of a crew suspended by the ACC for poor officiating in 2017, but no validity to that claim could be found. A different crew was suspended by the ACC in 2015.
Heydt, a South Carolina graduate, has drawn the ire of college fans in the past for his officiating and perceived favoritism, though that, too, has concluded as mostly baseless.
Singling Heydt out appears entirely unfair.
