Monday, January 2, 2012

Lions' Schwartz Not Pleased With The Officiating

After a disappointing 45-41 loss to the Green Bay Packers, a loss that extended their winless Lambeau streak to 21 years,  Detroit Lions head coach Jim Schwartz didn't have much to say at the postgame news conference. When the subject turned to officiating, he had a mouthful.

Schwartz challenged two fumbles in the second quarter, winning one and losing the other. The personal eye test says he should've won both challenges. The second challenge came whebn Stefan Logan apparently fumbled a kickoff after a Green Bay score. It looked like he was stripped of the ball after he was down but the call was upheld. That left Schwartz with no challenges when Titus Young was ruled out of bounds on an apparent touchdown that made the difference in the four point loss.

"It's unfortunate the way the league plays those because like on a ball that's loose, they're going to keep their whistles in their pocket because they don't want to have a play that was a fumble that they can't get it reviewed because somebody ruled him down by contact," Schwartz said. "But they don't have a camera angle to overturn. I mean, the guy's down. And then we get the touchdown play, which every play this year they always rule in favor of touchdown knowing that it's going to get reviewed, I don't have any challenges left."

"The whole thing with replay's to get it right," Schwartz said. "Well, we didn't get it right."

Not to excuse the Lions' poor performance on defense yesterday, but they were victimized by a few bad calls that could've turned the result in their favor.