Gosselin: Penalty prone Cowboys have to earn officials' respect - Dallas Cowboys Forum

**WoodysGirl** · 12-12-2011

Rick Gosselin, sports columnist for The Dallas Morning News and SportsDayDFW.com and member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame selection committee, answered questions about the Cowboys and the NFL in a live chat at 11 a.m. Monday. Some excerpts:

The officials were the worst. Can the Cowboys win another game?

Seems to me that every team that loses in the NFL wants to put some part of the blame on the officiating. The bottom line is the Cowboys have been a high penalty team for some time now. They have been penalized at least 100 times in six of the last seven seasons and were flagged 99 times in the one year they didn't hit the century mark. High penalty teams don't get the benefit of doubt from the officials. So you see the Cowboys getting 8-10 penalties every week. In the meantime, teams like the Patriots and Saints get penalized 4-6 times every week. You have to earn the respect of the officials to get calls and the benefit of doubt. They Cowboys have not done that. There needs to be a culture change at Valley Ranch. Players need to be held accountable for penalties, especially the pre-snap flags.

This group just doesn't seem to have the mental toughness and discipline and seemingly has regressed to pre-Garrett. Is it coaching or personnel?
Both. I've said a number of times in the pages of SportsDay and on these chats that Jason Garrett is still learning how to be a head coach. He is making mistakes and will continue to make mistakes until he has enough experience built up where decisions become automatic.

Read the rest: http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/dal...ls-respect.ece

For more of the chat, go here: http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/dallas-cowboys/headlines/20111212-chat-replay-cowboys-discussion-with-rick-gosselin.ece

Nav22 · 12-12-2011

(or the refs could just do their jobs without personal bias and call the game fairly for both teams)

speedkilz88 · 12-12-2011

I guess that is too much to ask.

numnuts23 · 12-12-2011

How in the ---- do you earn the respect of the officials if they are going to call every ticky tack call on them? Maybe they can dry hump the air on the other teams logo? Will that earn the respect they need to not get called for everything....

CowboyMike · 12-12-2011

Been saying this forever about the refs. We constantly get ticky tack calls against us is close key games at the worst time. They have a bias against us that has become blatant.

Hoofbite · 12-12-2011

Quote:

Originally Posted by CowboyMike

Been saying this forever about the refs. We constantly get ticky tack calls against us is close key games at the worst time. They have a bias against us that has become blatant.

I don't think he's saying they are scheming against Dallas but just that Dallas is a heavily penalized team so they look for penalties more so than they would if Dallas didn't have that reputation.

Probably works that way for other heavily penalized teams as well.

casmith07 · 12-12-2011

If Gosselin actually said that, that is by far the most asinine thing I have heard about the Cowboys all season.

TheCoolFan · 12-13-2011

The secondary has no excuse, there are clearly holding on every penalty. It's like Campo/Maxie are teaching them to play like that

Royal Laegotti · 12-13-2011

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nav22

(or the refs could just do their jobs without personal bias and call the game fairly for both teams)

It's got to be tough for a ref to not call a false start or encroachment. This team is dumb and undisciplined, you can't blame that on a referee bias. I actually think the refs could call alot more penalties on the Cowboys but they probably know the game will never end.

Nav22 · 12-13-2011

Quote:

Originally Posted by Royal Laegotti

It's got to be tough for a ref to not call a false start or encroachment. This team is dumb and undisciplined, you can't blame that on a referee bias. I actually think the refs could call alot more penalties on the Cowboys but they probably know the game will never end.

It's even tougher to see a facemask penalty, then un-see it. Still trying to figure that one out.

Or the non-safety safety. Romo was hit at the 1, staggered backwards, and fell into the endzone. The play was whistled dead as soon as Romo hit the ground... and nobody touched him even after the whistle... so why wasn't he given forward progress? It was a scoring play, so why wasn't it reviewed automatically?

Or my personal favorite, the blatant Giants defensive delay of game penalty that went uncalled during our last drive. We're in hurry-up mode with the clock running, one of the Giants blatantly grabs the ball to waste time, picks it up AND DROPS IT right in front of a ref. That wasted a good 5+ seconds alone, but no flag. The ref knew it was an illegal tactic, and he was staring right at the guy. Sorry, I'm not naive enough to think the ref is simply an idiot.

How many blatantly bad calls or (non-calls) went against the Giants? I didn't see any.

Rogah · 12-13-2011

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nav22

Or the non-safety safety. Romo was hit at the 1, staggered backwards, and fell into the endzone. The play was whistled dead as soon as Romo hit the ground... and nobody touched him even after the whistle... so why wasn't he given forward progress? It was a scoring play, so why wasn't it reviewed automatically?

The refs blew that call and no one on the Cowboys sidelines or the refs or the replay refs or the announcers noticed.

If the ruling was the Pierre-Paul caused Romo to go to the ground, Romo should have been awarded forward progress to the 1. If the ruling was that Pierre-Paul hit Romo on the 1 but then Romo regained his balanced only to fall in the end zone, then Romo should not have been called down by contact since no one touched him.

I've watched that play several times and it is clear to me that Romo never regained his balance and moved of his own accord. So he should have been given forward progress to the 1.

Cowboys&LakersFan · 12-13-2011

Ugh no the refs just have to make the right calls and they often don't.

burmafrd · 12-13-2011

yeah like all the holding calls they have ignored on Ware over the years. As usual outside of his top 100 Gosselin is a joke.

TheDallasDon · 12-13-2011

Quick question if they are being bias, how do u fix this???

LeonDixson · 12-13-2011

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hoofbite

I don't think he's saying they are scheming against Dallas but just that Dallas is a heavily penalized team so they look for penalties more so than they would if Dallas didn't have that reputation.

Probably works that way for other heavily penalized teams as well.

Isn't that exactly what everyone is saying, including Gosslin? They call penalties on Dallas that that they let slide on other teams. Isn't that a bias in and of itself even though it isn't scheming to get Dallas?