NFL officials are already off to a brutal start. Is this a sign of what's to come this season? We sure hope not. In the NY Giants loss to the Detroit Lions, there were definitely some quesitonable calls. However, the one called against Habakkuk Baldonado was simply a joke.
In the fourth quarter, Baldonado was able to bring down Lions quarterback Adrian Martinez for what looked to be a clean sack. That wasn't the case, however, as a flag hit the turf and Baldonado received a 15-yard penalty.
When taking a look at the replay of the sack (hyperlinked above), there's no question whatsoever that Baldonado did nothing wrong. The refs saw something completely different and they absolutely blew it:
Habakkuk Baldonado received roughing the passer flag on a bogus call from the refs
What are we even doing here? Head man Brian Daboll will be furious once he sees this when he and his staff look back on the film. Daboll was pretty darn heated from start to finish, as the Giants suffered a 21-16 loss. Depth is clearly an issue for the team.
Back to the officials - this really was an embarrassing decision from them. There were plenty of mistakes from the guys in stripes last season and we've already seen some awful decisions from them early on in the preseason as well.
On Thursday night in the Texans vs. Patriots game, C.J. Stroud was brought down cleanly by a Patriots defender and roughing the passer was called too, reminding people of the Dexter Lawrence penalty from last season.
Can we just let these guys play, please? We understand protecting the quarterback and trying to prevent injuries from happening, but these roughing the passer calls are becoming completely bogus. The refs need to clean things up and fast.
READ MORE: 5 main NY Giants takeaways from the preseason loss to the Lions