The Bengals were furious Monday night when Cowboys linebacker Marist Liufau did not draw a flag for grabbing Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow’s facemask 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 that the NFL’s disciplinary department didn’t deem this worthy of a fine.
Liufau was not fined for this piece, a major surprise given the egregious nature of the face mask. The NFL routinely fines players for wearing masks (four players were fined for wearing masks in Week 14), but for some reason they let Liufau off the hook.
The reckless masking against the Cowboys was particularly painful for the Bengals because it occurred on a third-down sack. This should have given the Bengals a first down; instead, the Bengals had to punt.
As NFL officials have repeatedly missed face masking penalties this season, there has been growing sentiment in favor of making face masking reviewable in replay. But the NFL’s disciplinary process had all the time and replay angles it needed to review the play, and still saw nothing worth fining Liufau over.