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Ref Called the Dumbest Penalty of the 2023 Season in Bears-Vikings Game

Also in Traina Thoughts: Eye-opening NFL betting stats; Mike McDaniel tries to clear things up; JJ Redick has the perfect non-NBA rant and more.

Jimmy Traina

In this story:

1. Am I going to whine about NFL refs yet again? You're damn right I am, because Monday night's Bears-Vikings game featured what might have been the single dumbest penalty call of the 2023 season.

It's one thing if officials miss a call on a bang-bang play or think they saw something that didn't actually happen, such as pass interference.

But for an official to throw a completely nonsensical flag and then double down on his absurd explanation should be totally unacceptable to the league office.

Early in the second quarter, Bears cornerback Kyler Gordon took off his helmet while still on the field BECAUSE HIS HELMET BROKE. The facemask literally became detached from the helmet.

And what did referee Alex Kemp do? He threw a flag and hit Gordon with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.

Kemp embarrassed himself further by telling everyone the penalty was for Gordon taunting.

Not only did Gordon’s helmet malfunction, but he wasn’t even near a Vikings player when he took his helmet off. How the hell could he taunt anyone when there wasn’t a player within 10 yards of him?

And of course, ESPN’s “rules analyst” John Parry showed exactly why the job of the rules analyst is so broken. Here’s everything he had to say about the refs throwing a flag on a player whose helmet was broken:

“There may have been something near that sideline that took that mask off.”

Thanks, John. SUPER helpful. 

Seriously, what are we doing here? Just a terrible look for the NFL.

2. Two incredible betting stats.

3. Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel should blame the Jets for this one.

If the Jets weren’t inept and noncompetitive, Al Michaels might not have had to go to storytime to keep people interested in Friday’s Miami–New York game.

But instead, the game stunk, so Al told a story about how McDaniel met his wife back when he was a UFL running backs coach.

As Michaels told it on Amazon:

“One of the running backs that he’s coaching is dancing with a girl, and Mike says, ‘Listen, you’re not dancing with her anymore, or you’re not playing with this team next year.’

“So McDaniel starts dancing with her … four years later, they’re married.”

McDaniel tried to clear things up at his press conference Monday.

“The ‘skeleton’ of the story is correct, but there are some important caveats. The perceived threat that I made to a player was over the top, a joke. Consider he and I knew a running back coach, I had no ability to say if he was there or not, it was more in jest.”

“My wife was telling me that people are talking about me stealing people’s girls. …The dude had met her for 45 seconds. … I feel like I was painted out to be kind of a d-bag, and it wasn’t like that at all.”

How can you not love Mike McDaniel?

4. Eagles defensive end Brandon Graham knew exactly what was going to happen when Philly and Buffalo went to overtime Sunday.

5. This is a couple of weeks old, but I just saw it for the first time last night while scrolling through TikTok and I have to post it because JJ Redick couldn’t be more right.

6. The latest episode of SI Media With Jimmy Traina features an interview with NFL VP of broadcast planning Mike North.

North explains how a game getting flexed happens, why the NFL would want to flex a game and what goes into flexing a game.

North also discusses whether he thinks any games will be flexed this season, what the league thinks of having three Patriots games left in prime time, how the Aaron Rodgers and Joe Burrow injuries have impacted the prime-time schedule, whether the league would ever consider scheduling only the first half of the season and then programming times and networks afterward during the second half.

North also reveals whether the NFL has ever considered removing the Lions from Thanksgiving, what the league was looking for from its first Black Friday game on Amazon Prime and why the league is happy to have Taylor Swift as a fan.

Following North, Sal Licata from WFAN Radio and SNY TV in New York joins me for our weekly “Traina Thoughts” segment.

You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify and Google.

You can also watch SI Media With Jimmy Traina on Sports Illustrated’s YouTube channel.

7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: I grew up in the ’80s and I love Hall and Oates. I still loved them even after I saw them in concert and they didn’t perform “Maneater.”

So all these recent stories (and the awful song title puns people keep tweeting) about Daryl Hall suing John Oates and getting a restraining order against him have hit me hard. You never want to see your favorites fights. I thought maybe this was just some legal business thing, but after seeing this clip of Hall talking about Oates on Bill Maher’s podcast last year, the hard feelings are real and sad.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out SI Media With Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.

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Jimmy Traina
JIMMY TRAINA

Jimmy Traina is a staff writer and podcast host for Sports Illustrated. A 20-year veteran in the industry, he’s been covering the sports media landscape for seven years and writes a daily column, Traina Thoughts. Traina has hosted the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast since 2018, a show known for interviews with some of the most important and powerful people in sports media. He also was the creator and writer of SI’s Hot Clicks feature from 2007 to '13.

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