Bad officiating was only one of
three things that caused Carolina to lose. The turnovers and penalties had as much to do with it as the officiating. As for the turnovers....Cam got the ball stripped by Von Miller. He saw him coming and didn't secure the ball. Cam is 6'5", 250 pounds and as strong as King Kong. No one has ever stripped the ball from Cam. He just didn't secure it. Fault: Cam. The Mike Tolbert fumble is odd too. He's a 250 pound wrecking ball made of pure violence and he let a boney little cornerback knock it out of his breadbasket. Again, ball securing 101. Fault: Tolbert. The INT Cam
threw went right
through the arms of Ted Ginn. He should of caught it for starters but made it even worse by not even knocking it down. Fault: Ginn. The 4th turnover I give Von Miller full credit. He came from behind Cam and knocked the ball out of his hand. Cam had no way of seeing him. Tip of the cap to Von Miller. As for the officiating. there were three critical calls/non calls that were killer. One was the Cotchery catch that was ruled incomplete. That was a clear catch and the replay proved it. No one said it wasn't a catch except the bonehead zebra who can't see straight. So instead of first down on the 38 it went back to the 12 yard line and two plays later is when Cam fumbled in his own endzone. That made it 10 - 0 and as far as I was concerned was the biggest part of the game. The second bad call (actually a non call) was when Gano doinked his field goal attempt off the upright. Talib was five feet offsides but no call. Had he been called, it would have given the Panthers a first down on the Bronco 20. Potential of 7 points turned into zero points. The third non call was when I believe it was Philly Brown caught a pass for a first down inside the Bronco 10 while Roby (the defender) had his arms wrapped around his body well before the ball got to him. An obvious interference that they let go (and duly noted in the analysis of many). Panthers had to settle for a field goal instead of a first and goal.
All that said, the officials were only one of three reasons why Carolina lost. The other two were totally Carolina's fault...turnovers and penalties (12 of them for 102 yards including three personal fouls and 6 false starts). To me, this was far more a Carolina loss than a Denver win. It doesn't come easy for me to say because I'm a Panther fan but I call it the way I see it.
