Baffling officiating continues to ruin the NFL season

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The play was blown dead, but Buffalo kicker Dan Carpenter went through his kicking process anyway.

Seattle cornerback Richard Sherman charged into the backfield to try block it and ended up crashing into Carpenter’s knee. The kicker went down as if he was injured, but the only flag thrown on Sherman was for being offside.

A trainer came out on the field to look at Carpenter, who popped back up shortly after going down. Though he appeared no worse for wear, officials ruled he had to miss a play because he had been tended to by a team official.

To get around that, the Bills ran a play in which they simply spiked the ball, allowing Carpenter to return.

He made the ensuing kick, but it didn’t count because the play clock had expired.

After five yards were marked off, Carpenter missed the next kick and the teams went to the locker room.

That was far from the end of it, of course.

While social media roiled with criticism, NFL vice president of officiating Dean Blandino tweeted that Sherman should have been called for unnecessary roughness. That would have allowed Carpenter to stay in the game and given the Bills a much shorter kick.

Blandino later told NFL Network his crew should have reset the play clock before the delay of game penalty because they were still handling the ball with under 10 seconds on it. That ended up contributing to the delay of game occurring.

The game could end up being a big one in the playoff picture.

It dropped the Bills to 4-5, 3.5 games behind the Patriots in the AFCE East and stuck in a group of seven AFC teams with four wins who are trailing 6-2 Kansas City and 6-3 Denver for the two wild cards in the conference.

The Seahawks (5-2-1) have a two-game lead over the Cardinals in the NFC West.