For years — make that decades — the rest of the NFL fan bases have complained about the beneficial treatment the Green Bay Packers have endemically received from the officiating. Ask any Lions fan, Seahawks fan, Cowboys fan (Dez caught it!), or any fan of any other team that pays any attention to the rules, and they’ll disgustedly roll their eyes at how many hundreds of times the refs have smiled upon the Packers.
Lions fans are acutely aware of being the fire hydrant to the Packers and their officiating dogs. Trey Flowers erroneously being called for illegal hands to the face twice. An egregiously missed delay-of-game foul that directly led to a Packers win. Aaron Rodgers longingly looking at the referee when he got breathed upon and immediately getting a flag. Pass interference called on a Lions defender who wasn’t even in coverage to mop up a Brett Favre incompletion. The list goes on and on and on and on again. Bears and Vikings fans can certainly add multiple paragraphs here, too.
In Detroit’s nail-biting win on Thursday night, Green Bay fans learned what it’s like to be on the business end of the hose–at least in their eyes. A couple of calls — more correctly, calls not made — from referee John Hussey and his crew favored Detroit in their eyes. Perhaps following the lead of head coach Matt LaFleur, who birthed a cow on the sidelines at not getting an offensive pass interference call against the Lions, they can’t believe their eyes.
Those eyes are spewing some of the saltiest tears ever tasted. Here’s another good example that’s being echoed around Cheesehead nation,
So many missed calls tonight on the lions, some of the worst refereeing I’ve seen in a long time. Literally from the first packers drive on roughing the passer, to the missed push off from St Brown on the 2&17. So many other missed holding calls…
— Federal Tom-Foollery (@St8frmJakeFarm) December 6, 2024
It’s as if much of the Packers fan base has come to the sudden and collective realization that the middle child learns when the new baby comes along, like discovering the presents from Santa in your parent’s closet the week before Christmas, learning that the stripper doesn’t really love you and your ex never spends a second thinking about you. And it’s hit them all at once.
Welcome to the cold reality of being just another NFL team. To quote Tyler Durden,
“You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake.”