My biggest gripe with Dallas so far this season was penalties. I have been preaching it every week. Usually, it was false-start type penalties that end up killing a drive. Sunday, it was much worse. With Dallas leading 10-6 early in the second half, the defense had stopped the Giants quickly. However, a running into the kicker penalty on safety Keith Davis gave the Giants the ball back instead of setting up the Dallas offense at their own 40. Give Giants veteran punter Jeff Feagles credit for taking that acting class at Miami. It was worth it. Davis was semi-blocked into Feagles. Davis ducked an clearly made an effort to avoid Feagles. Unfortunately, Feagles was smart enough to hold his foot in the air a couple seconds until Davis could get there. He then dropped his foot down on Davis?s shoulder pads and the flag came out. First down Giants. Tiki Barber then broke out of his slump with a 58 yard run. But even with the Giants at the 14 yard line, the defense stiffened, with Greg Ellis sacking Warner on 3rd down. Out came another flag, with Ellis getting called for a personal foul facemask penalty. There is no doubt Ellis had the mask, although it was honestly a 5 yard variety, with Ellis letting go before tackling Warner. First and goal from the 8. Two plays later, the Cowboys appeared to force another 3rd and long after Glover sacked Warner. But another flag claimed Dat Nguyen threw an illegal elbow to the head at the end of the play, although replays showed nothing. Once again, new life, with first and goal from the 6. Three plays later, Shockey used a Michael Irvin-type pushoff to catch a touchdown. This only made it 13-10, but the momentum had changed and stupid coaching decisions took over.
That was a horribly reffed game. It is rare that I would say that a ref determined the outcome of the game, but the refs definitely had a huge influence in this one. The roughing the kicker call was aweful. Simply aweful. There was nothing of the sort there. The illegal elbow to the head was also a horrible call. What were they thinking? The facemask was a facemask. I think I agree that it was a 15 yard variety. The general rule seems to be whether the head gets turned, and the head was turned on that play. The refs also missed Jeremy Shockey pushing off on his TD reception. It was an obvious pushoff.
