The Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Chicago Bears 29-27 on Monday night.
Unfortunately, all anyone was talking about Tuesday morning was the poor officiating on display throughout the game. Two incidents, in particular, symbolize precisely how the rest of the night went.
With the Bears down late in the fourth quarter, Bears linebacker Cassius Marsh recorded a massive sack on third down. Unfortunately, referee Tony Corrente opted to flag Marsh for taunting over this sequence:
Cassius Marsh made a huge play but it was called back because of taunting đź‘€
— Sportskeeda Pro Football (@SKProFootball) November 9, 2021
Corrente’s reign of terror then went viral courtesy of this exchange:
Tony Corrente leaned into the contact and then held his flag toss like a walk off three pointer. What a joke pic.twitter.com/MhNlNVewJx
— Will Brinson (@WillBrinson) November 9, 2021
Naturally, social media wasn’t thrilled with how things went down:
#tonycorrente should NEVER be allowed to officiate another #NFL game. video proof of his biased performance shows either corrupt intent or utter incompetence; either one is enough for dismissa. #Bears #Steelers
— MIA ZEN (@QUEENMIAZEN) November 9, 2021
NFL Referees deserve fines. Tony Corrente’s hip check was pretty weak in nature but how much would a player be fined for it?
— Tyler Polumbus (@Tyler_Polumbus) November 9, 2021
FIRE TONY CORRENTE RIGHT F*CKING NOW #NFL
— Mike Hunt (@Wipe_hard) November 9, 2021
Fire Tony Corrente
— Mike Hunt (@Wipe_hard) November 9, 2021
It remains to be seen how the league will ultimately deal with this situation. Termination, suspension and fines all seem like fairly reasonable options given how egregious Monday’s antics were.
Bad officiating has been a popular topic of conversation so far in 2021, and this will be more par for the course.
Now that’s a Halloween costume. https://t.co/WVK6W11K9M
— Game 7 (@game7__) November 1, 2021
Will the NFL attempt to step up and preserve the integrity of the game? Time will tell.
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A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
