The Bengals were furious on Monday night when Cowboys linebacker Marist Liufau didn’t draw a flag for grabbing the facemask of Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow and pulling him to the ground. The call was obvious, and it was hard to believe the officials on the field missed it.
It’s also hard to believe the NFL’s disciplinary department didn’t consider it worthy of a fine.
Liufau was not fined for the play, a major surprise given how blatant the facemask was. The NFL routinely fines players for facemasking (four players were fined for facemasking in Week 14), but for some reason let Liufau off the hook.
The uncalled facemasking against the Cowboys was particularly painful to the Bengals because it happened on a third-down sack. It should have given the Bengals a first down; instead the Bengals had to punt.
As NFL officials have repeatedly missed facemasking penalties this season, there’s been growing sentiment for making facemasking reviewable in replay. But the NFL’s disciplinary process had all the time and all the replay angles it needed to review the play, and still saw nothing worth fining Liufau for.
