The end of the first half of Monday Night Football between the Buffalo Bills and Seattle Seahawks was complete chaos.
It all started when the Bills were going for a field goal right before the half. Richard Sherman was offsides and ran into Dan Carpenter while trying to block the kick.
Despite hitting Carpenter, Sherman was not flagged for roughing the kicker because he was already called for the offsides penalty and the play was dead. However, VP of officiating Dean Blandino tweeted that Sherman should have been flagged for unnecessary roughness.
Carpenter went down in agony, but stood up and seemed perfectly fine.
In the midst of this, players thought the second half had ended, which led to the referee freaking out over it and exclaiming that the half was not over.
Carpenter received medical attention, and because the Bills had used up all their timeouts, they were charged an injury timeout, meaning Carpenter had to come off of the field for one play. This forced the Bills to spike the football in order to get Carpenter back on the field for a field goal attempt with one second remaining.
After the spike, Carpenter hit a 49-yard kick — except it didn’t count because the Bills received a delay of game penalty. This was very controversial, as the referee stood over the ball when there was just four seconds left without resetting the clock.
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Five yards back, the Bills lined up to kick the field goal again and Carpenter missed.
This entire sequence seems like a perfect encapsulation of how the NFL season has gone so far. There was a bunch of madness, penalties, and a missed field goal.
It’s also a strange ending to what was an exciting first half between the Bills and Seahawks.