{"id":689691,"date":"2026-01-19T22:12:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T22:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/689691\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T22:12:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T22:12:18","slug":"why-the-refs-are-ultimately-to-blame-for-bo-nixs-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/689691\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the refs are ultimately to blame for Bo Nix\u2019s injury"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s little use complaining about \u2018what ifs\u2019, but after listening to the national media bemoan the Ja\u2019Quan McMillian interception in overtime<\/a> for the last two days, I have something else to bring up. The play shouldn\u2019t have ever happened if the officiating crew had done its job earlier on that drive.<\/p>\n

Spencer Brown, the Buffalo Bills right tackle, admitted he had been egregiously holding guys on the Denver Broncos line all game long.<\/p>\n

\u201dYou can\u2019t blame the officials,\u201d Brown said after the game<\/a>. \u201cThat\u2019s not what I try to do. But you\u2019re letting the guys play all game long. I was holding the piss out of some people today and they didn\u2019t call it. There was a third down right before we kicked the field goal — I was holding Cooper hard and they didn\u2019t call that. They were letting the boys play, but that\u2019s a well-coached team. They knew where we were at and where they were at on the field. I think those passes were not really thrown to be caught. I think they were thrown to go out there and make us make a mistake and get a little help from the zebras. I thought they called a good game for the whole time. Those things are going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

He mentioned the hold on Jonathon Cooper and that was bad enough<\/a>, but he smartly forgot about the worst no-call hold of the game. It came on that overtime drive and happened in the end zone.<\/p>\n

If the refs do their job on that play, the game would have been over. The Denver Broncos would have won 32-30 and Bo Nix would be playing in the AFC Championship Game against Drake Maye. The storylines would have been amazing!<\/p>\n

Instead, we get a week of the national media whining about an interception that seems pretty clear on reply. Sure you can grab a still shot of the ball not moving, but if you play it the ball is moving until one person gains possession of it. That person was Ja\u2019Quan McMillian.<\/p>\n

What they should be complaining about is how the Broncos were robbed of their franchise quarterback playing in the conference title game because the officiating crew refused to call holding penalties even for the most egregious acts of holding you\u2019ll see in any game. So to Rich Eisen who called it the \u201cMile High Robbery\u201d<\/a> and all the others\u2026 stay salty!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s little use complaining about \u2018what ifs\u2019, but after listening to the national media bemoan the Ja\u2019Quan McMillian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":689692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[83996,7,6,84],"class_list":{"0":"post-689691","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl-playoffs","8":"tag-denver-broncos-playoffs","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-nfl-playoffs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115924064308811785","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=689691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/689692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}