Last time I made fun of an NFL referee not named Bill Vinovich, we went to the cold climate of Cleveland, Ohio, in 2023. Here, John Hussey’s crew ruined a few hours of our lives en route to a San Francisco 49ers’ loss at the hands of the Cleveland Browns.
Well, guess who gets to be the center of attention now? It’s none other than Hussey again and his crew’s officiating for Sunday’s 16-15 win over the Arizona Cardinals.
First, a disclaimer: The 49ers won because they overcame adversity and made fewer mistakes than the Cardinals. The 49ers won because they took care of business despite playing the Cardinals and the refs. Had they lost, the officiating would not have been the reason. They would have lost because Christian McCaffrey had some key drops. They would have lost because Mac Jones threw an interception. They would have lost because the offense churned out three-and-outs like they were on sale.
But the two are not mutually exclusive. We can criticize the 49ers’ play plenty, while groaning about the officiating, because it was terrible for both teams.
But this is a 49ers site, and I’m not here to level that playing field. Let’s get biased: the Cardinals got away with what seemed like a lot of false starts. And a lot of holding. It was baffling how few penalties were called in their direction when you’re watching the game.
We begin with a play I was trying to find a video of that I could share, but I wasn’t so successful. On second and 9 with 28 seconds to go in the first half, Cardinals defensive end Calais Campbell gets around the edge and jumps on Mac Jones as he’s throwing the ball. That wasn’t so bad.
What was bad was Campbell driving him to the ground when there was plenty of time to let up. After the play, you can see Campbell having a chat with a referee, and that’s all we heard of it.
It seemed Campbell was driving him to the ground, giving him plenty of time to realize the ball was gone and shove off Jones. I’m not on the field, I don’t know what the timing window was, but it looked unnecessary. As the ball is sailing, you see Jones being pulled to the ground. I guess a conversation with the ref was all that was needed for this.
Another play to bring up is first and 10 with 4:33 in the third quarter. Christian McCaffrey ran to the sideline, and as he was stepping out, Cardinals linebacker Mac Wilson body slammed him. That is, again, another judgment call that can go either way, but I couldn’t help but think that if the roles were reversed, we’d have seen a flag, especially when it wasn’t a hit, but instead something more akin to a DDT.
Those are just the appetizers. Another call that really irked me was this play on fourth down, where Christian McCaffrey got blasted before he could catch the ball:
At first, I thought it was pass interference, but I began to shrug it off as a bang bang play. It was at that very moment that I also realized I’m a homer, and this is one of those times to go full homer. I can’t shake the fact that an objective call like this would have been flagged nine times out of 10 for the 49ers, and if that were the case, I’d be screaming to let them play. I’m not the only one who thought this:
To me, this looks like a hit on a defenseless receiver. Not so sure it’s bang bang.
You still here? OK, let’s talk about the safeties. Because the last time we had such issues with safeties at Levi’s Stadium, Jerome Boger and his crew were working on the 49ers’ loss to the then-St. Louis Rams.
Our first “safety” comes with Kyler Murray having an intentional grounding call, but the ball was juuuuust outside of the goal line, so it wasn’t a safety:
Hussey’s crew was friendly enough to cover themselves and explain the rule. And the best way to describe this is ball placement. They are looking for the spot of the foul, and in this case, the spot of the foul was the pass and where Murray’s arm/the football were in relation to the foul.
If you check the NFL rulebook, it simply states that if the passer is in his end zone, it’s a safety. At this point, I’m just going to accept the fact that I don’t know what a safety is, just like the NFL doesn’t know what a catch is.
But while we can argue if that is/isn’t a safety, there’s no arguing that this next play probably isn’t a safety. Because only the 49ers can have a safety not be a safety by letter of law…then get the same thing called on them.
Yes, you see some holding in the end zone, which would mean safety. BUT, an argument can be made that the foul occurred outside of the end zone. Whatever they were flagging Dominick Puni for on that hold (crotch grab, I guess?) he commits the penalty outside of the end zone. It goes to where the foul occurred, not magically upgraded once they cross the goal line.
And if you are going to say Puni was holding in the end zone? Come on, man. If he did “hold,” it was outside the end zone. And I wouldn’t call that a hold. But that’s the problem, these calls are objective.
So, that’s two points for Arizona. Again, don’t bother reviewing the call, especially when this is a game where two points is like having five touchdowns. Or, you know, don’t throw a flag at all because that’s some ticky tack stuff if I ever saw it.
Of course, the correct answer is Skyy Moore’s misfire to down the punt that put the 49ers all the way back there in the first place. Had he let the ball bounce, chances are they’d be getting a touchback.
The point of this isn’t to show the sour grapes of bad officiating, actually, it’s to show that despite how bad Hussey’s crew is (and we’ve seen some bad games from them), the 49ers still took advantage of their (single) opportunity to win the game. Had they lost, we could have pointed to several other reasons why the 49ers lost. In this case, they took care of business despite having a reffing crew that’s only consistency is embarrassing themselves.
That says a lot about this team. The officiating will always be bad; it’s how the team can overcome that, and the 49ers did it on Sunday.
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