Micah Parsons set social media aflame this week with a post on Instagram.
In the post he typed: “Free me dawg!!! whatever I did to the officials I'm sorry!”
He added this photo from the game against the Dolphins.
Judging by the photo, the man has a point.
Add to it that we are now at 38 quarters of game action without an opponent's offensive line being called for holding Parsons.
There are numerous examples of Parsons being held during that stretch. So why isn't he getting any calls?
Micah Makes His Case
Parsons has a total of 13 sacks and 53 tackles this year. He's already tied his career high of 30 hits on opposing quarterbacks.
And this with having gone the last 38 straight quarters without drawing a holding penalty.
Just imagine his numbers if he weren't getting held – which he clearly has been – during that stretch.
Adding insult to injury, he was called for roughing the passer on Sunday, a call even a former NFL official disagreed with.
Parsons made his case during in an interview on the Cowboys' official website.
“(The official) said my intent was to punish the quarterback,” he said. “But how am I trying to punish him if I'm just trying to sack him? It's not like it's a late hit. I didn't leave my feet. I didn't lead with my head. I don't know how you make that call.
“I got there so quick, how was I supposed to know he got the ball out?” he added. “It was within a second. I didn't leave my feet. I didn't lead with my head, so I don't know what a roughing the passer is anymore. In reality, I ran into D-Law. We both met at the quarterback. Like I said, it's just hard to play defense.”
He did offer one possible explanation for the apparent imbalance.
“It's mind-blowing, the things that are getting called, the positions we get put in,” he said. “We just got to learn to fight the adversity and know a lot of it is BS. It's football plays, but it's the world we live in. We got the star on the helmet.”
Is it really as simple as that? Is the NFL, through its officials, targeting the Dallas Cowboys?
Why would they do that to one of its more popular franchises?
Or is there a more simple explanation?
Conspiracy Theories Abound
Several posts around the various social media platforms definitely see a conspiracy in the NFL and the league's Commissioner is right at the heart of it.
Roger Goodell and Jerry Jones are not bosom buddies. The two have locked horns in the past.
Jones led the charge against Goodell a few years ago when it came time to extend Goodell's tenure in the league.
Many feel Ezekiel Elliott's six-game suspension in 2017 – handed down shortly after Jones' induction into the Hall of Fame — was payback for that by Goodell.
Unless you are well-schooled in the Vulcan Mind-Meld, there's no way to know if Goodell acted out in revenge or not.
I covered my first NFL game back in 1992 and have covered the NFL for most of these past 30 years.
I'll be honest, sometimes I wonder if the theory is valid. Although, if you made me decide one way or the other, I'd say it isn't.
But the theory is out there and gains some weight when one examines the fall of Jon Gruden.
Those e-mails that ended his days as an NFL coach targeted Goodell's family.
Someone put them out there and we still don't know the identity of the leaker.
Make of that what you will. One would hope however that the NFL's officials would have a little more integrity than that.
Which is why Occam's Razor enters the chat at this point.
Because there is a simpler explanation and thus, becomes the most likely reason why Parsons hasn't been able to draw a flag in over nine games.
The quality of officials in the NFL – and across all of sports to be honest – stinks.
Bad Officials
The NFL switched to full-time officials a few years back and the decline in officiating seemed to arrive at the same time.
The argument was full-time officials could focus on their craft, leading to better officiating.
Nice — in theory — but it just doesn't seem to be translating out on the field.
And it isn't just you and me that's noticing.
I've lost track of how many times during a broadcast when the former official in the booth is called in and says flat out they don't agree with the call.
Parsons' hit on Tua Tagovailoa that drew a flag is only the latest example. It seems the only person who saw a penalty there was the official that threw the flag.
There has been inconsistency in calls for the last several years and sometimes within the same game.
PI is called on one play but not on another when there was even more contact.
Defenders being spun around like a top getting no flag thrown and on the next play a slight tug draws a fusillade of yellow laundry.
A quarterback gets hammered and no flag.
A fingertip grazes a quarterback's helmet and attempted murder charges are seemingly added to the roughing the passer call.
Its maddening. And there is no easy solution.
Do you adopt an “Eye in the Sky” system where an official in the booth can overrule a bad, or even missed, call?
It would increase the game's duration to an almost intolerable level.
But isn't it just as intolerable to allow blatantly bad calls and perhaps even bias – conscious or not – to determine the outcome of these games?
It doesn't make it any less annoying that the issue is also prevalent in college football, basketball, hockey, baseball, and all the other sports.
Google “Angel Hernandez” and “MLB Umpire” and it makes Parsons' complaints against the NFL referees seem mild by comparison.
Baseball fans hate Hernandez. And with good reason.
He's probably, in my opinion, the worst umpire in the entire history of baseball.
Sadly, NFL fans are hating just about all of the NFL's officials just as much. And with just as good a reason.
Bad officiating is ruining the games.
Is There A Solution?
And there's the rub. Even with instant replay, human error by the officials still comes into play.
The only way to eliminate that is to have the ability to review every play when needed.
If you want a perfectly called game, that is the only way. But you'd have to live with the possibility of a five-hour game if you do that and the refs are having a bad day.
But would even going to that extreme solve the problem 100%?
I don't think so.
Look at the gyrations replay goes through to determine if a player made a catch. How many times have they made a ruling and people still doubt the call?
I've seen more than one instance – yes, Dez caught it – where a catch was ruled and I wouldn't have called it one. And vice versa.
The sad fact is: We will never have a perfectly called game, no matter how replay is used.
So all we can do is hope more of the calls go our team's way. And all Micah can do is keep playing hard.
He should also hope the officials finally decide to start throwing a flag when he's getting undressed on the field by the opposing team's offensive line.
And if all that still doesn't solve the problem? Hey, Goodell has to retire eventually, right?
