Those wondering why there weren’t any ejections from last Sunday’s New York Giants-Carolina Panthers game are not alone. Apparently even the league’s VP of Officiating felt similarly.
Dean Blandino said on NFL Network Tuesday that he reminded the officials from the game at the Meadowlands that they could eject players, which seemed like his way of signaling to the officials he felt they were warranted.
“I think when you look at all of the actions in their entirety it does warrant an ejection,” Blandino said on his “Official Review” segment, via the New York Daily News. “Any time a player is suspended, those actions would warrant an ejection. We don’t take disqualifications lightly. It’s a short season. The action really has to raise above and beyond the normal course. And this certainly did. There’s certainly an accumulation of instances.
“And not just on (Odell) Beckham. There were some things on the other side, too. And I think both parties were involved. The officials, if you ask them, they would agree after looking at the tape that ejections were warranted.”
Blandino thought there were opportunities to throw flags and set the tone early in the game that Terry McAulay and his crew missed, such as this squabble between Beckham Jr. and Josh Norman.
“There was a point during the game when I did get on the headset to the replay official to remind the referee that ‘You can eject players. You’ll have our full support. This thing cannot get out of control,'” Blandino said.
“Things did tend to settle down as the game got closer in the fourth quarter, but certainly there was a point there where it was getting a little bit crazy.”
Blandino believes that if you penalize those plays early in the game, it sends the message that fighting will not be tolerated. Instead, Beckham ended up being penalized three times for unsportsmanlike conduct and was even allowed to remain in the game despite dangerously spearing Norman on this dirty play.
