At one point, it appeared as if the officials were chasing a single-game record for penalty flags thrown.

In what was a ref show from the start, Clete Blakeman’s crew called what seemed like an unwarranted penalty against New York Jets‘ quarterback Aaron Rodgers in a Week 17 road loss to the Buffalo Bills. In all, the Jets accounted for 16 accepted penalties, and one of them came in the form of a personal foul charged to Rodgers. Conversely, there were seven penalties enforced against Buffalo during the 40-14 blowout victory.

With New York facing a 12-0 deficit midway through the third quarter, Rodgers fired an errant pass downfield on a 3rd-and-19 play. Bills’ cornerback Christian Benford timed it perfectly and intercepted the ball at the Buffalo 23-yard line.

Instead of hanging his head and walking away from the play, Rodgers sprinted toward the far sideline in an effort to stop Benford on the return and delivered a light shove to the opponent’s back as he was stepping out of bounds.

“I don’t think I pushed him very hard. I was just chasing down the play,” said Rodgers.

The love tap was enough to trigger the official to flag Rodgers for unnecessary roughness. The 15-yard penalty set up the Josh Allen and the Bills’ offense at the Jets’ 38-yard line. Allen proceeded to hit Amari Cooper for a 30-yard touchdown two minutes later, bumping Buffalo’s lead to 19-0.

 

“In his defense, he was going to erase a mistake and he was busting his butt over there,” said interim head coach Jeff Ulbrich.

It’s hard to knock Rodgers for hustling, and ultimately it was one of at least five penalties that wouldn’t have been called if not for an overzealous officiating crew.