There’s a time and place to argue missed calls by the referees. The fourth quarter of a tight road game against the two-time defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs is not the time or the place.
Someone needs to pass this memo along to Ja’Marr Chase.
With the Bengals in field goal range, while pushing the Chiefs to their limits in Week 2, Chase got tackled on a basic curl route. However, he took great exception to how Chiefs cornerback Trent McDuffie brought him to the ground, thinking it was a much-maligned hip-drop tackle.
When no ref on the field called anything, Chase proceeded to furiously tell off an official, then slam his helmet on the sideline. In this context, that’s a big no-no and an easy 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty to call — a penalty that almost took a crucial Bengals field goal off the board if not for the prowess of kicker Evan McPherson:
JaMarr Chase is called for a big unsportsmanlike conduct penalty pic.twitter.com/UfnH3mve60
— Mr Matthew CFB (@MrMatthew_CFB) September 15, 2024
Chase tosses the helmet and this is going down to the wire pic.twitter.com/OPVUvAXZ4T
— Mark Slaughter (@MarkVSlaughter) September 15, 2024
When Bengals head coach Zac Taylor eventually caught Chase on the sideline in a discussion, the star receiver was still arguing the apparent missed call:
Zac Taylor having a chat with Ja’Marr Chase pic.twitter.com/AVuDOZnCYT
— NFL on CBS (@NFLonCBS) September 15, 2024
I’m sympathetic to Chase wanting the officials to get a call right.
There’s a lot of stuff that is missed during NFL games, which I’m sure gets super frustrating for players. But choosing to berate an official with your team sitting in fourth-quarter field goal range is just flat-out unacceptable. That’s probably a missed call that you should eat 99 percent of the time so you don’t cost your squad a potential chance at the win.
In this case, Chase is lucky McPherson had his back with a 53-yard field goal. But that’s an exception to how these kinds of harmful penalties usually work out for NFL teams.
