LA Chargers: Decision time on Justin Herbert and 5 Week 4 overreactions

Overreaction #3: Reffing is unevenly hurting the LA Chargers

Bad penalties and calls benefit both teams in every game every week. It is simply a part of a game that is played with elite athletes that are playing with incredible speed, and every team benefits from some questionable calls every week.

However, in the last two weeks, there have been some unusually bad calls going against the LA Chargers.

No loss should be blamed on the referees alone, but there is plenty of reason to be upset with the quality of the referring in the last two weeks.

Below is a list of some poor calls that significantly impacted the outcome of the games in the last two weeks.

• Week 3: Mike Williams is called for offensive pass interference that was highly questionable.
• Week 3: Justin Herbert was ruled to have fumbled the ball when his arm appeared to be moving forward with the ball before it came out.
• Week 4: Shaq Barrett was blatantly offsides multiple times but was not called for it.
• Week 4: Anthony Lynn challenged a Buccaneers reception for a possible fumble. Despite the receiver dropping the ball when getting up without being touched, the referees ruled the receiver gave himself up.

While a couple of these calls were questionable (particularly the Herbert Week 3 fumble), I strongly believe that a random poll of referees would agree that these calls were wrong more often than not. In the case of the Anthony Lynn challenge this week, the announcers believed that a fumble should have been ruled.

Bad calls on turnovers are particularly costly in the NFL. For that reason, it is fair to say that reffing has been costly against the Chargers in the past two weeks.

However, the referees should not be blamed for the losses. Key Chargers mistakes were the critical cause of both losses.

Still, Chargers management should be calling the league office to look for answers or apologies regarding the last two weeks. Mistakes happen but it is awfully disappointing when they are so impactful.

Verdict #3: Not an overreaction