Going over the All-22, Mack was "blatantly" held 9 times against the Broncos. By blatant, I mean, bear-hugged, taken down, hooked, or grabbed from behind. Like, "there is no fucking way that isn't a hold" holds. Now, the positive is that 4 of those holds were flagged. And 3 of those penalties were accepted. On the negative side, 5 of the clear-as-fucking-day holds were not called. More, I am only noting the 9 "blatant" holds. I'm not even counting the times he was held on those 50/50 plays. Those are the ones where he was likely held, but a ref could let it go or call it if he wanted to an no one would argue the call. I think it's safe to say - as I said in my thread Monday Morning Thoughts thread - the refs botched that game. With that, my bigger concern is that this week we play on Monday night. And we all know how the refs pocket their holding flags on Nationally televised games.
I think I read or heard once that less that 5% of holding is called by officials. It would explain that look of shock when these guys get flagged. It's not because they didn't think they did it; it's because they got flagged for it. This also sounds something familiar to a philosophy used by Pete Carroll. Something to do with his secondary about getting away with PI. Actually teaching to do it on a small level and see if they can get away with it. Maybe I'm wrong, but that really sounds familiar.
#72 on Denver's Oline was atrocious and should have been called more. Mark Schlereth, the color guy calling the game getting on him was hilarious. Maybe I'm just being too "glass half full," but a top 3 LT (Trent Williams) in the game is holding out of the redskins due to their medical staff beef and isn't playing Monday, so Mack draws old-man Donald Penn, who ranks 7th among OLinemen in 2019 in penalties per PFF coming back from an injury last year where he only played 4 games. This is a match up I attack the shit out of if I'm Chuck Pagano. Buster Skrine blitz on top of Mack will make a long day for Case Keenum
Someone pointed out on the game thread how they hate Schlereth, but man I loved him killing Denver 72. “Don’t shake your head, you know what you did, and if you don’t know, we’ve got another problem”. Ducking gold.
