NFL Week 4: when the officials crossed the line

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alison b

If you watched the NFL this weekend and felt like the referees were everywhere, you were not imagining it. Week 4 drew more penalties per game than any week since 2015, 17 touchdowns have already been wiped off the board by penalty this season, and on Monday the league suspended two of its own officials. Week 4 belonged to the men in stripes, for better and for worse.

Let me take it a piece at a time, starting with the full slate.

The NFL Week 4 results

Week 4 results
2026 season · full slate · kickoff times US Eastern
Thursday 1 October
CLEPittsburgh Steelers at Cleveland Browns 27-24
Sunday 4 October
INDIndianapolis Colts at Washington Commanders 30-13
NYGArizona Cardinals at New York Giants 36-24
NENew England Patriots at Buffalo Bills 29-26
CHINew York Jets at Chicago Bears 23-12
DALDallas Cowboys at Houston Texans 34-30
LALos Angeles Rams at Philadelphia Eagles 24-20
GBGreen Bay Packers at Tampa Bay Buccaneers 17-14
BALTennessee Titans at Baltimore Ravens 24-18
JAXJacksonville Jaguars at Cincinnati Bengals 22-17
MINMiami Dolphins at Minnesota Vikings 15-10
KCKansas City Chiefs at Las Vegas Raiders 30-27
SEALos Angeles Chargers at Seattle Seahawks 30-23
SFDenver Broncos at San Francisco 49ers 24-14
Sunday night
CARDetroit Lions at Carolina Panthers 32-26
Monday night
ATLAtlanta Falcons at New Orleans Saints 45-24

Scores: NFL Week 4 scoreboard.

Following the Raiders? Their 3-0 start ran into the Kansas City Chiefs, who edged them 30-27 for a first loss (NFL.com). I break the game down in the Raiders Week 4 review, with the long story behind it in the Chiefs and Raiders rivalry.

The refs are the story, and the numbers back it up

Analyst Warren Sharp pulled the season’s numbers through four weeks, and they are startling. Week 4 averaged 17 penalties a game, the most in any single week since 2015, and offences are being flagged in the red zone at a record rate, 0.61 per team per game (Sharp Football Analysis).

The one that stops you is the touchdowns. If the flag falls on the scoring play, the penalty wipes the score clean off the board, called back as though it never happened. That has happened 17 times already this season. Through the same four weeks last year it happened five times, and the year before that, four (Sharp Football Analysis). Something that used to be a rarity is now landing more than three times as often, and it lands on the single biggest play of a drive. If you want to know what each flag means and what it costs, penalties, explained runs through them.

Every flag is a specific written rule being enforced, not a referee’s verdict on how well a team played. When the whistle starts deciding which touchdowns count, though, officiating stops being background and becomes the game itself.

Why the league had to bench its own

Which brings us to Monday, when the NFL suspended two officials, both for what it called “an instance of unprofessional conduct toward a player” (NFL.com).

The first one loops straight back to last week. Line judge Jeff Seeman was given two games after Arizona tight end Trey McBride, who felt a Giants cornerback had interfered with him on an incomplete pass, complained about it and was met with what looked like a yelled profanity (BBC Sport). A player arguing about an uncalled interference is the most ordinary scene in football, and the reason those calls are so contested is something I went through only last week.

His own head coach’s reaction is the bit worth reading twice. “You hate to see it for obvious reasons,” Mike LaFleur said, “but I do want to give the man a little bit of grace too. I know Jeff. He’s a good man. It’s unfortunate it happened. It can’t happen obviously” (BBC Sport).

The second case is gentler still. Referee Adrian Hill got one game after Minnesota linebacker Eric Wilson, who had been shoved into him by Miami running back Ollie Gordon II, went to help him back up and was pointed at and shouted at for his trouble. Wilson was entirely unbothered: “That was funny, honestly. I ended up apologising to him and explained the situation. He was cool about it” (BBC Sport).

So neither man is a villain, and that is rather the point. Suspending an official is rare, and what made it matter is the double standard it quietly closed. As the players’ union put it, “players are consistently held accountable when the roles are reversed. We expect the NFL to hold officials to the same standard” (NFL.com).

Here is that standard, from Rule 12, Section 3 of the rulebook:

“There shall be no unsportsmanlike conduct. […] Using abusive, threatening, or insulting language or gestures to opponents, teammates, officials, or representatives of the League.”

A player who does that loses 15 yards. The rule is harsher still on contact: a player may under no circumstance “shove, push, or strike an official”, and if he does he is disqualified on the spot. Every line of it points one way, protecting the official from the player. What the rulebook does not contain is the reverse, because the officials are the ones who throw the flags; there is no penalty to call on themselves. So when an official crosses that line, it cannot be handled on the field. It has to be handled as an employment matter, which is exactly what a suspension is. The rulebook governs the players toward the officials; the league office governs the officials toward the players. This week we saw the second half of that bargain, the half you almost never get to see.

Twenty years since the night the Dome roared

For all that, the game can still stop you cold, and Monday night in New Orleans did. The Saints hosted the Falcons two decades on from the night those same two teams reopened the Superdome, the Saints’ first game back there after Hurricane Katrina (Fox 8).

On 25 September 2006, barely 90 seconds into that game, Saints special-teamer Steve Gleason burst through the line and blocked Michael Koenen’s punt, and Curtis DeLoatch fell on the ball in the end zone for a touchdown. The Saints won 23-3 (Fox 8), but the score was never the point. A blocked punt, where the special teams crash through to smother the kick before it leaves the punter’s foot, became the moment a flattened city decided it was still standing. A statue of the play, called Rebirth, went up outside the Superdome in 2012 (ESPN).

Gleason revealed in 2011 that he had been diagnosed with ALS, and in 2019 he became the first NFL player awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, for the advocacy he has done since (Wikipedia). The football on Monday did not go the Saints’ way, a 45-24 Atlanta win, but the night was never about this year’s score. For why games like this one carry so much more than a result, NFL rivalries never die gets at it.

Four weeks into the NFL seaon

The referees have taken over the conversation, by the numbers and by their conduct, and on this evidence that is a fair thing to be talking about. But a week that ended in New Orleans is a reminder that the flags are not why any of us fell for this game. Both things are true at once, which is about right for a sport this big.

Wonder which way it swings next. Roll on Week 5.

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