New York Jets wide receiver Santonio Holmes seems to be happy with the officiating in their Sunday loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers and he said as much after the game.
The former first round draft pick of the Steelers was quoted after the game as saying, “Those guys are on top of things. They listened to us.”
Holmes was covered most the afternoon by his former teammate Ike Taylor and drew three penalties on his Florida training partner on the way to a 3 catch day for 28 yards that included a 14 yard touchdown pass on the Jets first possession of the game.
While Holmes might have had a case on the first two calls, that included Taylor being flagged for pass interference and holding, the last pass interference call on Taylor early in the fourth quarter was a phantom one.
That call was so blatantly bad that it initially appeared that safety Ryan Clark was flagged instead on the play for separating Holmes from the ball with a clean hit after his attempted catch. Luckily the Jets drive stalled three plays later, but it doesn\’t take away from the poor job that the replacement referees did officiating the game.
Taylor was asked about the calls going against him and in the favor of Holmes after the game and the veteran cornerback took the high road. “I can\’t do nothing about that, Taylor said. “I\’ve got top play.”
When asked about doing battle with Holmes after the game, Taylor had nothing but praise for the Jets wide receiver.
“You know me and Tone played over here together and we\’ve been playing against each other a long time. He\’s in Orlando and I\’m in Orlando, so I knew coming out that he and I were going to be very competitive.”
After the game Jets head coach Rex Ryan was quoted as saying, “They did a great job of press coverage. They did a great job of being physical.”
Unfortunately the replacement referees thought that Taylor was being too physical, but in the end not even they could change the outcome of the game as much as it appeared that they were trying to.
I wonder if the league researched any of their Facebook pages.
