thelesterlee
I’ve watched a lot of football, mostly teams flying into Jersey and beating up the locals like Ronny and The Situation—but a lot of football nonetheless.
The 2025 NFC Championship game between the Eagles and Commanders introduced a rule I had never considered existed.
Philadelphia ran Washington out of the game with a 55-23 victory to return to the Super Bowl (and once again lose to the Kansas City Chiefs).
The Commanders turned the ball over 5 times.
The Eagles scored touchdowns on all 5 of those turnovers.
The Eagles scored 7 rushing touchdowns, the most in a championship game since the invention of the forward pass.
SAQUON BARKLEY 60 YARD TD ON THE EAGLES FIRST PLAY 🤯😱
UNREAL.
(via @NFL)
pic.twitter.com/z1nwtMZhDP— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) January 26, 2025
Someone from Washington had to step up and put an end to this nonsense.
With his team down 34-23 with just under 13 minutes left in the game and the Eagles lined up at the goal line—ready for yet another Jalen Hurts run up the middle for an easy score—Commanders linebacker, Frankie Luvu, tried to save Washington’s season by jumping the snap and stopping the Tush Push in the backfield.
Frankie Luvu 😂😂😂pic.twitter.com/4R0zrJgg0Tc
— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) January 26, 2025
Frankie Luvu did it again lol pic.twitter.com/GhcUwoSznu
— Arye Pulli (@AryePulliNFL) January 26, 2025
Frankie Luvu jumped the snap back-to-back times.
And right after, Washington DT, Jonathan Allen, jumped the snap too. 3 consecutive offsides penalties in a row caused the refs to announce that if Washington commits another penalty, they will consider awarding Philadelphia a touchdown.
“Encroachment, defense No. 93. Washington has been advised that at some point the referee can award a score if this type of behavior happens again. For now, it’s a replay of second down.” – Shawn Hochuli, after Fox’s Mike Pereira alluded to this as well.pic.twitter.com/jZcDABVdMv
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 26, 2025
Never in my lifetime have I heard a ref turn on their little microphone and tell us that they have ‘advised’ a team to stop committing penalties or they’ll be sorry.
I understand why this rule exists.
I could see a world where a defense trapped on their own goal line commits multiple consecutive pass interferences to intentionally stop the team from putting 6 on the board and the referees choosing an extreme penalty to prevent a team from literally cheating.
But, god, I wish Frankie Luvu leaped over the offensive line one more time so the refs would have no choice but to huddle up and make an insane decision.
The game was over.
The Eagles were up 11 points, sitting on the 1-centimeter line with 4 downs to get into the endzone.
Philadelphia’s running game made the Commanders defense look like generic Albanian henchmen in a John Wick movie easily getting mowed down one-by-one as Saquon and Jalen Hurts marched through the Commander’s dance club to speak with their boss.
Of course Frankie Luvu was trying to jump the snap. The only way Washington could stop Philadelphia from scoring was to prevent them from running a play in the first place.
Here’s what Luvu said after the game:
“I was just timing the jump over. They’ve been doing a lot in short yardage and I was going to take my shot. That’s the mindset I came in with. Take my shot; if I make it, I make it, if not, I bounce back. The third time they told me I get a 15-yard penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct. I didn’t know what that was about. I guess they wanted them to score. So, I stopped from there and that’s how it played out.”
See, if I were Frankie Luvu, and I believed the refs wanted Philly to score, I would have simply leaped over the line of scrimmage one more time and made the refs prove it.
Perhaps that’s why I’ve never played in an NFC Championship Game. I am a petty child who wants to push the refs buttons until they award the other team with a touchdown but if you’re going to lose anyway, you might as well make history.
In the immortal words of Denzel Washington…”I’m leaving here with something“. The refs would have had to dial 9-1-1 and arrest me because I would be flying over the center on every single play for the remainder of the game.
Then, I want my team to push me onto the field like I’m Hannibal Lecter every game but instead of eating humans, I jump snaps and destroy the flow of football games.
We need more chaotic playoff games. No more predictable games like the Bills losing to the Chiefs. Make the refs work out there.
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