Super Bowl 57 did not offer much to complain about, unless you consider the crappy pitch and surprising penalty call on Philadelphia Eagles cornerback James Bradberry.
Both of the above have dominated the NFL discourse all week. Where the holding call on Bradberry is concerned, most folks simply couldn’t believe a referee would make such a call at that point in time. It ruined what could have been an exciting end to a splendid Super Bowl.
An interesting tidbit has since emerged about the officiating crew. According to Jeff Howe of The Athletic, referee Carl Cheffers’ teams hadn’t called defensive holding since the Buffalo Bills played the Chicago Bears on Christmas Eve. Between then and Sunday, they’d gone 576 consecutive snaps without flagging for such a penalty.
Cheffers worked three games after the Bills-Bears game, including two during the playoffs, but defensive holding wasn’t called in any of them and didn’t come up again until Sunday’s Super Bowl.
This could mean everything, but it could also mean nothing. We’re unlikely to ever know. It’s just a shame that it had to be called at that particular moment in time, with the game shaping up to go down to the wire.
It’s also hard to believe that there were no defensive holding offenses in the prior 576 snaps, which speaks to the inconsistency players continue to be faced with.
