The Seahawks continue to benefit from bad officiating calls, and were helped to “victories” in two games this season.
Previous posts have shown how the refs gave the Seahawks the replacement-ref game against the Packers, and how the refs gave the Seahawks the 2014-2015 NFC Championship Game against the Packers.
This year, Seattle “beat” the Lions when the refs failed to call intentional batting of the ball out of the endzone at the end of the game. The NFL admitted the mistake.
This year, they were helped to a “victory” over Dallas, when, down 10-3 late in the first half, Dallas kicked a field goal to make it 10-6. Seattle had 12 men on the field and called timeout, which wasn’t legal because they had just called timeout. Had the penalty been called on Seattle, instead of kicking the field goal on 4th-and-3 from the Dallas 17 with 1:38 left in the half, Dallas would have had a first down at the Seahawk 12. While there was no guarantee Dallas scores a TD, they had driven from their 20 and were moving the ball. Seattle “won” the game 13-12, so this was a key terrible call, which the announcers repeatedly talked about. Dallas’ coach was screaming about this, and confronted the refs at halftime. The drive prior to that, Seattle scored a “TD” to go up 10-3. The runner was clearly down about 6″-12″ from the goal line, and though the play was reviewed and the replay clearly showed the player down before crossing the line, the refs gave Seattle the TD. Of course Seattle would have had a first and goal inside the one and would probably have scored a TD anyway, but the point is that things can happen and Seattle should have had to score legitimately.
This continues to happen and continues to favor Seattle, as evidenced by the obvious terrible calls in the 4 games referenced above.