You watch Bears/Steelers last night? I turned it off at 14-3 and ended up missing a good game. Womp womp.

But the big story on Action News is official Tony Corrente, who appeared to stick his butt out and lay a hip check on Cassius Marsh prior to throwing a flag for taunting:

For context here, the flag was for taunting. Prior to the video clip above, Marsh sacked Ben Roethlisberger, then took a couple of steps toward the Steeler sideline. That’s when Corrente did the hip check, on Marsh’s return to the Chicago sideline, then the flag came out.

If Marsh was deemed to have made contact with the ref, he would have been ejected. So you wonder why Corrente leaned into the guy in the first place, if he was throwing a flag for something else.

Said Corrente in the pool report:


“First of all, keep in mind that taunting is a point of emphasis this year,” Corrente said in a pool report. “And with that said, I saw the player, after he made a big play, run toward the bench area of the Pittsburgh Steelers and posture in such a way that I felt he was taunting them.

…

“I didn’t judge (this contact) as anything that I dealt with. That had nothing to do with it. It was the taunting aspect.”

Here’s what Marsh said about it:

Yeah, he will get fined for that, but he’s speaking the truth.

This is the best angle I can find of the taunting penalty:

https://twitter.com/hobokenjustin/status/1457922825247932418?s=20

It’s stupid, but they don’t want people facing the sideline or “flexing” on other guys, or doing anything that’s directed specifically at other players. Welcome to the NFL in 2021.

I suspect we’ll hear more about Corrente today. Whoever is in charge of the refs should enact some kind of discipline here.