In a season marked by blown calls — or at least perceived blown calls — the refs couldn’t escape the first quarter of the biggest game of the year unscathed.
Twitter pitchforks were out in full Sunday during Super Bowl 50 after a Jerricho Cotchery catch was ruled incomplete, then upheld as a non-catch by official review.
The former Jet bobbled the Cam Newton pass, then appeared to collect it and rest it against his body as Bronco Darian Stewart tackled him to the ground.
The ball did appear to move slightly while he was down, which likely decided the call. But fans who watched and rewatched the replay were outraged that a play that human convention says is a catch the NFL rules is not a catch.
The leader of the incensed, not so shockingly, was ESPN’s screamer-in-chief Stephen A. Smith, whose rage would not even allow him to spell Cotchery correctly.
Streams of others rushed to their computers and phones to blast the call, perhaps none more on the nose than Dez Bryant, who should know what a catch is and, most frustratingly for him, what isn’t a catch.