Safe to say that Joey Bosa wasn’t happy with the performance of the officials during the Charger’s “Monday Night Football” win over the Raiders.
Bosa tore into the referees after the game and specifically griped about a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty he received with under four minutes left in the game and the Chargers leading by 14 points.
“I didn’t even know they called the f—ing penalty on me because I was fuming,” Bosa said to reporters after the game, per ESPN. “But, I mean, refs are blind, simple. I’m sorry, but you’re blind, like open your eyes and do your job. It’s so bad it’s unbelievable.”
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Boas believed that he had been held on the play and was shouting at the referees in its wake. Evidently, his complaining went on too long and that penalty allowed the Raiders to move the ball across midfield.
Bosa was still angry about the play after the game but also acknowledged that he needed to better keep cool when calls don’t go his way.
“Fifteen yards, it’s a big deal,” Bosa said. “Obviously that’s on me. I should never lose my temper like that, but these guys have got to do a better job because it’s been years of terrible missed calls left and right. It’s really pathetic, honestly, but pathetic on me too for doing what I did. Call or not I have to take a step back and just go to the next play, but, man, they seem not to have their eyes open half the time.”
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Luckily for Bosa, the penalty didn’t matter much. Derwin James intercepted Derek Carr just a couple of plays later. That allowed the Chargers to run the clock down to two minutes and force the Raiders to use all of their time outs. That effectively sealed a victory.
Bosa was a force during the contest and notched a sack — the 50th of his career — in the Chargers’ 28-14 victory. He credited Los Angeles’ game plan for allowing that to happen and he took a little shot at Carr, who was sacked four times, in his postgame press conference as well.
“We knew once we hit him a few times, he really gets shook,” Bosa said. “And you saw on [Christian Covington’s] sack, he was pretty much curling into a ball before we even got back there. Great dude, great player…but we know once you get pressure on him, he kind of shuts down.”
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The Raiders will certainly use that as bulletin board material when they take on their divisional rival in the final week of the 2021 NFL season.