Richard Sherman vs. the refs is the most epic battle of the 2016 NFL season

Richard Sherman and NFL officials have been tangled up in controversy all season long, and the Seattle Seahawks’ Monday Night Football win over the Buffalo Bills was just the latest example.

Sherman recently suggested that there’s a league-wide conspiracy to keep the Seahawks from beating all of their opponents through bad officiating.

“I’m sure the league has a way of even-ing out the league,” Sherman said after the Seahawks lost to the Saints in Week 8. “We have a really good team, so, you know, I guess you’ve got to do something.”

Against the Atlanta Falcons, Sherman benefited from the officials keeping the flags in their pockets when he interfered with Julio Jones on what ended up being the Falcons’ final offensive play of the game.

There were multiple reasons the foul wasn’t called, but Sherman and the Seahawks certainly benefited from that one. Atlanta was trailing 26-24, and had Sherman been penalized for interference, the Falcons would have gotten the ball around the 35-yard line, setting up a potential field goal to win.

Sherman was the victim of a blown offensive pass interference call against the Saints in Week 8 that put New Orleans in position to kick a field goal and establish a 25-20 lead over the Seahawks.

It meant the Seahawks had to go for a touchdown to win the game, and they didn’t get it done.

“I don’t know what it is, but it’s real obvious to the outside world how the game was officiated,” Sherman said. “I don’t think they (referees) were trying to hide anything. I mean the calls — or the lack thereof — were pretty egregious. So we will let you guys decide that. All we can do is keep playing.”

When the Seahawks faced off against the Bills in Week 9, the refs’ judgments primarily seemed to work in the Seahawks’ favor. Just before the half, Sherman was flagged for being offsides on a Buffalo field goal attempt.

Sherman made contact with Bills kicker Dan Carpenter, but the officials didn’t flag him for unnecessary roughness.

“They didn’t blow the whistle so I played until the whistle was blown,” Sherman said.

Referee Walt Anderson explained why he didn’t flag Sherman, saying “I just didn’t feel like the actions and the contact, because we were shutting the play down, warranted a foul.”

The NFL’s head of officiating, Dean Blandino, thought Sherman’s contact with Carpenter before the half warranted an unnecessary roughness foul, however.

“The officials were in the process of shutting the play down. Sherman jumped offside and he was unimpeded to the kicker so we shut that down,” Blandino said. “The referee didn’t think that the contact was severe enough. He felt that players were coming together and he just didn’t think it was a foul.

“We looked at it and it is a foul. It is no different than a defender coming offside and hitting a quarterback after the whistle blew, so it should have been unnecessary roughness.”

Sherman didn’t seem surprised by Blandino’s perspective.

”That don’t mean nothing to me,” Sherman said. “They missed a ton of calls. We’ve dealt with missed calls all year. That wouldn’t have helped them any more. They still would’ve kicked the field goal.”

Sherman also wasn’t flagged for leveling Buffalo wide receiver Walter Powell in the end zone with 20 seconds remaining in the game.

Bills quarterback Tyrod Taylor was out of the pocket, which means the contact between Sherman and Powell was legal.

As a guest columnist for The MMQB, Sherman advocated for simplifying the rulebook, adding an eighth official on the field during games, reconfiguring the positioning of referees on the field of play, and improving communication between players and officials.

He reiterated those perspectives following the Seahawks’ loss to the Saints, saying that the complicated rulebook makes it more challenging for officials to make correct calls on the field.

“Make the rulebook a lot less extensive,” Sherman said. “You’ve got a bunch of freakin’ rocket scientists writing rules, I guess, for a simple game ... They always say they ask players and coaches about rules and rule changes but they really don’t take what they say into account obviously because the game is entirely too difficult to officiate.”

Sherman knows the NFL rulebook, sometimes better than the actual referees, it seems, and he uses it to his advantage. The outspoken cornerback isn’t likely to cut the officials any slack for missed calls, so this controversy will continue.