Al Michaels had enough with the officiating in the Ravens-Bengals thriller on Thursday night.
The Amazon play-by-play man let out his frustration after the Ravens got away with two penalties on the Bengals’ game-deciding two-point attempt in the fourth quarter while trailing 35-34.
First, rules analyst Terry McAulay, a former NFL official for 20 years and three-time Super Bowl referee, explained how they screwed up.
“It was clearly defensive holding before the pass was in flight. It should’ve been called and that does look like forceable contact to the head of the quarterback. That’s roughing the passer,” McAulay said while a slow motion replay showed Ravens defensive tackle Nnamdi Madubuike grabbing the face mask of Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow.
Michaels wasn’t happy about it.
“Too many games end this way. They just do,” he said. “You miss calls — the whole thing. It’s so frustrating… so frustrating.”
The Bengals were trying to go for a two-point conversion attempt to win the game.
McAulay believed officials missed two crucial calls on that play, the late hit on Burrow and a hold on Bengals tight end Mike Gesicki.
The game was over for Bengals when the Ravens recovered the onside kick to secure the one-point victory in what was an in intense back-and-forth game between AFC North rivals.
The Ravens rallied after the Bengals jumped out to a 21-7 lead in the third quarter.
