Getty Image/Comedy Central
There are bad calls, and then there are the bad calls that make both players and fans alike wonder what the game of football is turning into. A handful of those latter bad calls were made during the Week 6 Monday Night Football game between the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills.
Some of the calls were so egregious, in fact, that Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers called them out after the game despite some of them going in favor of his team. He even managed to work in a reference to South Park while ripping the current state of the NFL’s officiating.
“Some of [the penalties] seemed really bad. Including the roughing the passer on me, that’s not roughing the passer.” Rodgers said to the media after the Monday Night Football loss to the Buffalo Bills. “Might as well play Sarcastaball if we’re gonna call those things. And I thought the one on [Javon] Kinlaw was not roughing the passer, either.”
“It seemed a little ridiculous. Some of them seemed really bad, including the roughing the passer on me, that’s not roughing the passer. We might as well play Sarcastaball if we’re going to call those things.”
Aaron Rodgers on the penalties tonight: pic.twitter.com/FeJ7zfeaVE
— Jets Videos (@snyjets) October 15, 2024
Given how specific that reference is, one can’t help but wonder just how long Rodgers has been waiting to use that line. The next day on his weekly Pat McAfee Show apperance, Rodgers further explained the reference, saying he’s been a South Park fan for a while.
“I’ve been a fan of South Park for a long long time. With zero sarcasm Team America: World Police got me through a dark time in my life when I broke my collarbone,” Rodgers told McAfee and his minions.
“Sacastaball” is from a 2012, Season 16 episode of the long-running Comedy Central series South Park, which sees the popular character Randy Marsh invent a new, “sarcastic” brand of football due to his outrage over South Park Elementary’s decision to eliminate kickoffs from kids’ football.
With Robert Saleh fired, Nathaniel Hackett demoted, and Davante Adams acquired, Aaron Rodgers has now officially run out of excuses to not deliver for the Jets.