Cam Robinson’s Ejection the Latest Strange Officiating Call In Jaguars’ 2020 Campaign
The 2020 Jacksonville Jaguars simply have as small of a margin of error each game as can be conceived. The youngest team in the league, the Jaguars have to play near-perfectly or at least have lucky breaks go their way to win in 2020.
That is hard to do when officials are making curious and egregious calls, however. Every team gets calls go against them, but the last two weeks have been especially frustrating for a Jaguars team that has now dropped two games in a row and is 1-2.
In Thursday's 31-13 loss to the Miami Dolphins in primetime, the Jaguars' didn't lose because of any strange call, with the loss instead being a result of a bad offensive day and a worse defensive one. But the referees still inserted themselves into the action near the end of the third quarter, resulting in the Jaguars losing left tackle Cam Robinson for the final four possessions of the game.
With about 4:00 left in the third quarter, Garder Minshew was strip-sacked by Kyle Van Noy, resulting in a pile of players fighting for possession of the ball. In the middle of that pile were Robinson and a number of officials, with one referee in especially close proximity to Robinson on the ground.
Robinson would make a few attempts to move the referee's arm, which led Robinson to be flagged for making contact with an official and subsequently ejected.
“Yeah, I didn’t see much. All I saw was, I saw Cam on the bottom and I saw the officials jump in there," head coach Doug Marrone said after the game.
"The official told me afterwards that I guess he jumped on him and Cam went to push him off him. So, he touched the official, that’s what I was told. So, you know, you can’t touch an official.”
Robinson would turn to social media after the game to dispute the strange enforcement of a usually simple rule.
Just a few days before Thursday's loss to the Dolphins, the Jaguars saw the officials play a big role in their 33-30 loss to the Tennessee Titans in Week 2, making this a frustrating pattern for a Jaguars team that is still learning to get out of their own way.
The referees made several game-changing calls and non-calls in Nashville, such as a strange pass interference on Myles Jack on a fourth quarter third-down play that would have prevented the Titans from kicking the game-winning field goal. The officials also didn't flag defensive end Jadeveon Clowney for a number of instances in which he lined up offsides, including on the final play of the game (a tipped interception).
Marrone said earlier in the week that the team sent several plays into the league to review, but that was about the extent to which he commented on it.
“Yes, I did. I did send them in, I did hear back. And if you guys are going to pay for the fine, I’m more than welcome to tell you what it is, but if you tell me what you think, I can tell you if you’re right or wrong," Marrone said.
