Apparently Clay Matthews slept with a ref’s mom and/or sister at some point because the guy just can’t catch a break when it comes to the NFL’s officiating. This time it comes in the form of an opinion he shared and not something that happened on the field.
In case you live under a rock, there was a lot of criticism towards the refs following the Packers vs Lions Monday Night Football game in Week 6. Two costly illegal-hands-to-the-face penalties(among other questionable calls) against the Detroit Lions DE Troy Flowers triggered a lot of controversy on social media — although one of the two looked perfectly reasonable after re-watching from different angles. These sorts of things get amplified when it is a MNF game and the viewership is much higher than your average Sunday afternoon game.
NFL fined Rams’ LB Clay Matthews $12,500 for the below tweet: https://t.co/dZXKqrFGX9
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) October 19, 2019
Matthews’ beef with the refs goes back much farther than that MNF game, but with so many people focused on the officiating so far this season, he saw it as a good opportunity to voice his concern. Unfortunately, the NFL did not approve of him sharing his opinion.
Although, to be fair, it does put refs in future Los Angeles Rams games in an awkward position considering that future calls may be misconstrued as retaliation for this opinion. Then again, we all know the refs have had it out for Clay for some time now.
Anyone that has followed the game of football for long knows that these things sometimes benefit your team and other times you are the recipient of bad calls. Despite Lions’ fans whining all week, there is no conspiracy against any team when it comes to bad calls. I would argue that Matthews, although making a reasonable point in his statement, should have at least saved his criticism for the off-season. For anyone harping over free speech, that amendment protects you from the federal government and not private entities like the National Football League.