THE BAT: Another Monday night game in Seattle, another blown call leading to a bizarre ending. This time it was The Bat. Safety Kam Chancellor punched the ball out of Calvin Johnson’s hand, forcing him to fumble away a potential game-winning touchdown on third-and-1 with 1:44 left to play. Linebacker K.J. Wright batted the ball out of bounds, resulting in a touchback. HOWEVER ...
Everything you need to know about ‘The Bat’ and the Seahawks’ controversial win
THIS is why everyone’s talking about the NFL rule for illegal batting Tuesday.
WRONG CALL: The ball should have gone back to the Lions with a new set of downs and the ball half the distance to the goal-line. Why? The illegal batting rule that nobody apparently knew about until it was too late. Here’s a full explanation of how the refs screwed up. The NFL acknowledged the screw up after the game.
THE GAME: Seattle won the game, 13-10, despite losing most of its running backs and some of the worst offensive line play of the season. The Lions dropped to 0-4 on the season, the only winless team in the NFL after a quarter of the season.
LOWLIGHTS: Jon Gruden got weird. Tyler Lockett tried to catch a punt with his face. Doug Baldwin couldn’t get any love from one surly ref.
INJURIES: Seahawks running back Fred Jackson left the game with an ankle injury. Lions tight end Eric Ebron hurt his knee in the second quarter. Detroit’s defensive line was hit especially hard: Haloti Ngata needs an MRI on his calf and Tyrunn Walker has a “significant” ankle injury.
WINLESS: “Pathetic” is what Lions fans were saying after the game, and they’re coming to terms with what it means to be 0-4.
REBOUND: Seahawks fans are feeling pretty good about things after a shaky start to the season.
IN OTHER NEWS ...
FIRED: The Dolphins didn’t leave Joe Philbin in London; they fired him on Monday morning back in Miami. They’ll have some options for replacing Philbin after the season, but it probably won’t help the Dolphins.
DEZ RETURN: Could the Cowboys have Dez Bryant back by the end of the month?
LUCKY: The Colts will likely have Andrew Luck back for Thursday’s game. Speaking of the Colts, they had a visit from Ahmad Bradshaw this week.
REX’S TEAM: The Bills have taken on Rex Ryan’s personality, and that’s hurting them on the field.
TANNEHILL IS A JERK: Ryan Tannehill said some really demeaning things to his own teammates, so of course the Dolphins coaches told his teammates to go easy on him in practice.
POOR NINERS: The 49ers wanted to see how much their Twitter account was worth. Not much, as it turns out.
MVP: Could Andy Dalton actually be the MVP this season?
LOS ANGELES: NFL owners are getting together in New York this week for their fall meeting. The big item on the agenda is figuring out which team(s) are going to Los Angeles. They’re not expected to actually vote, but they could be a lot closer to deciding what happens by Wednesday night. There are various scenarios being batted around for Los Angeles, but all of that could change between now and January.
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