Dec 8, 2013; Baltimore, MD, USA; Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson (28) huddles with teammates prior to the game against the Baltimore Ravens at M
Adrian Peterson spent the second half of Sunday’s crazy Vikings-Ravens contest sitting bundled up on the sidelines after injuring his foot. So Adrian had a pretty good view of everything going on around the stadium, including the officiating and fan behavior.
Suffice it to say, Adrian was not impressed by what he saw from either the refs or Ravens fans. Adrian tweeted shortly after the Vikings’ 29-26 loss to Baltimore:
Wow talking about bad officiating & the worst fan base I've ever experience! They threw snow balls the entire 4q like lil kids. Smh
— Adrian Peterson (@AdrianPeterson) December 8, 2013
Can’t speak to the fan behavior because I wasn’t there. Can say I didn’t think it was the best-officiated game in NFL history.
The worst call by far was the replay non-reversal on what should have been ruled a non-fumble by Toby Gerhart. With the snow swirling in the first quarter, Gerhart’s knee appeared to be down before the ball came loose on the play. The snow didn’t really affect the replay that was shown on TV and the stadium jumbotron – a replay that appeared to clearly show that Gerhart’s knee was down before the ball came out.
But the replay official saw it differently and awarded Baltimore the ball on the fumble. Baltimore drove down quickly, thanks in large part to a Joe Flacco scramble, and scored their first points of the game.
More examples of bad officiating: a couple of questionable spots, the first of which was fixed after a Leslie Frazier challenge, the second of which maybe should have been challenged by Frazier but was not. You could also question some of the pass interference that was called against the Vikings.
That said, I’m not sure it’s Adrian’s place to call out the officials. It was a tough day for everyone thanks to the weather and Adrian should probably try to understand that. If you want to hang this loss on the refs, fine, but other people deserve blame too including the defense for not being able to get a stop late, and Mike Priefer for the weird decision to pooch it to Jacoby Jones on the kickoff Jones ran back for a TD.
Maybe Adrian is just upset because of the injury. Or maybe he’s irritated because the team will be stuck in Baltimore for awhile with the bad weather. Maybe he had some bad shrimp again.
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