Lions led 14-10 over halfway through Q3. Bears driving, Lions make a stop on 3rd and 15 and should have gotten the ball back. Instead the refs throw one of the most comical flags I’ve seen this year; the illegal contact call on Branch (completely away from the ball/play where almost no contact even happened).
Bears continue the drive, get 3 pts. They kickoff, we fumble it right back to them in Lions territory, they score another 7.
Such as life in the NFL, but crazy to think how that entire 10-pt sequence only happened because of a horeshit flag. Without it, we don’t know exactly what would have happened, but we know that the game script takes a completely different trajectory
Illegal contact isn’t PI, it doesn’t matter if it’s away from the play or if the ball was catchable, it’s a penalty. Ticky tack sure, but the refs didn’t hose us. They were calling those all day and our defense didn’t adjust to it
The point is, there was just about zero contact, period.