On any given Sunday of NFL games, expect the unexpected.
Week 4 resulted in an unexpected exchange between line judge Jeff Seeman and Cardinals tight end Trey McBride.
It happened after a non-call of pass interference late in the Cardinals-Giants game. It looked like a fairly clear foul. McBride made his case to Seeman. And while the cameras and microphones captured nothing McBride said, a CBS camera on the sidelines showed Seeman apparently saying to McBride, “Fuck you.” Twice.
NFL Players Association executive director JC Tretter issued a statement calling Seeman’s behavior “unacceptable” and expressing hope that the league will hold the officials to the same standard that is applied to the players.
Via Sam Neumann of Awful Announcing, CBS reporter Aditi Kinkhabwala witnessed the interaction. She heard no profanity from McBride.
“I was standing right there,” Kinkhabwala said on Twitter. “What’s wild is that it all started with Trey McBride saying ‘please’ when pleading his case for a PI flag. He was heated for sure, but I never heard a curse from him. The harshest he got was, ‘You’re ruining the game.’”
It was a bad call, to be sure. The latest in a recent epidemic of erroneous calls and non-calls of pass interference. The point is that, as players, coaches, and officials interact after such decisions are made, certain lines shouldn’t be crossed.
If McBride had said to Seeman what Seeman apparently said to McBride, there surely would have been consequences. During the Fail Mary misadventure of 2012, the NFL issued multiple fines to coaches for their conduct toward replacement officials.
The league has said it will review the situation. There’s not much that needs to be reviewed, however. The eye in the sky doesn’t lie, and it doesn’t take extensive lip-reading skills to understand what Seeman said to McBride.