—As the NFL heads into its 10th week of season, the issue of officiating is once again the main topic of conversation. The weekend started when the Baltimore Ravens beat the Cincinnati Bengals 35-34 in an exciting Thursday night game marred by bad officiating. The Bengals scored with 38 seconds left to cut the deficit to a point. The Bengals went for two, but Joe Burrow’s pass was incomplete.But the officials appear to miss two Ravens’ fouls on the play – defensive holding and a hit to Burrow’s helmet. Neither is reviewable so the Ravens won instead of the Bengals having a second shot at the two point conversion. The officials also missed a false start by the Ravens that should have nullified an 84-yard touchdown play by Tylan Wallace. The no calls showed the NFL either needs more review in the final two minutes or needs to approve the officiating. But the NFL has yet to show much interest in fixing the problems and loses some of its best officials to TV, which pays them better. So the controversies are likely to continue.
–The feature Sunday night game this week is the Lions at Houston.The 7-1 Lions have won six in a row since losing their second game to Tampa Bay and are shooting for the top seed. They have a one game lead over the Vikings, who are playing at Jacksonville. The Texans have been somewhat disappointing but still have 5-3 record in the AFC South and a two game lead over the Colts. The Texans have lost two of last three including a surprising loss to the Jets last week. The Texans have already swept the Colts so that means they would win a tie-breaker against the Colts.
–The other national games are Carolina vs. Giants in Munich on Sunday morning morning while the Rams are hosting Miami Monday night. The Giants and Carolina are both 2-7 so the NFL once again has a game in Europe between two losing teams. But the NFL knows it can sell out the games in Europe regardless of the matchup. In the Monday night game, The Rams are 4-4 and a game behind the Cardinals while the Dolphins are struggling at 2-6
–CBS has two feature early games – the Steelers and Commanders in the eastern half of the country and the undefeated Chiefs hosting Denver in the western half. The Buffalo at Indianapolis game also should be a good game but is basically being shown in the TV areas of the two teams. Tampa Bay is hosting San Francisco but the Bucs are blacking out their home game so it will be shown on the West Coast.
–The CBS feature game doubleheader game Sunday is Philadelpha at Dallas, which will be shown to most of the country. The 6-2 Eagles figure to win but the 3-5 Cowboys are an attraction even though they are a losing team and quarterback Dak Prescott is injured and willl be replaced by Cooper Rush..
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