During Chicago Bears and Pittsburgh Steelers’ Monday Night Football game, fans watching live witnessed something bizarre involving a player and referee.
For whatever reason, NFL referee Tony Corrente threw a ‘hip check’ on the field, causing Bears’ Cassius Marsh to run into him. As soon as contact was established, the referee tossed his flag, but it was actually to call Marsh for taunting the Steelers.
Chicago had just sacked Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger late in the 4th quarter trailing 23-20. Marsh walked toward the Pittsburgh sideline and stared them down. He was then flagged for taunting. That gave the Steelers a fresh set of downs and put them in range to hit a field goal. The Steelers would go on to kick a game winning field goal later in the 4th quarter, winning 29-27.
Shannon Sharpe tweeted out during the Bears vs Steelers game Monday night.
Lakers superstar LeBron James took to Twitter and agreed with Sharpe: “That player if the [shoe] was on the other foot would have been thrown out the game, suspended, fined and depending on the player possibly CUT from the team.”
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Marsh clarified in his post-game conference that his celebration was not a taunt. “I think that one was just bad timing. It’s pretty clear to everybody who saw it that I wasn’t taunting. I’ve been doing the celebration my whole career. It’s just sad to see stuff like that happen in a close game like that.”
“The one thing that I will say is that on my way to the sideline, I got hip checked by the ref. It was pretty clear. If I was to do that to a ref, or even touch a ref, we’d get kicked out of the game, possibly suspended or fined. I just think that was incredibly inappropriate.”
