Former Steelers OG Ramon Foster Believes The NFL's 'Script' Protects Certain QBs And Not Others Like Kenny Pickett

The Pittsburgh Steelers have been struggling and inconsistent so far in the first eight weeks of the 2023 season. The defense has been far from perfect, but they have been doing enough to keep the Steelers in games. The offense is another story as they look disorganized and sloppy. So when you add some really questionable calls from the officiating crew into the mix, it reopens old wounds and restarts talk of "scripts" and conspiracy theories. Now one former player is saying he can certainly understand why. 

During Pittsburgh's Week 8 matchup against the Jacksonville Jaguars, the officiating was some of the worst that has ever been seen according to many analysts. It is most frustrating because the Steelers are doing enough to shoot themselves in the foot on their own, they don't need the referees making up calls against them that potentially impact the game. 

While there were many suspect calls, the one that really stood out to former Steelers offensive guard Ramon Foster was the roughing the passer call and the lack thereof. Foster now co-hosts a podcast with reporter Dejan Kovacevic on DK Pittsburgh Sports, called The Ramon Foster Show. According to Foster, on a recent episode, it is bad calls like that that have him buying into the idea of a set narrative from the NFL.  

"Whenever you call it one way, you got to be able to see the same thing on the other side too, and they're not seeing that one. Kenny [Pickett] went down, the dude laid into him. I know we joke around with, 'The NFL has a script,' but it's almost like sometimes they tell them hold your flag if it's somebody like Kenny Pickett, hold your flag if it's somebody that you don't really love, and throw it every time you got a Trevor Lawrence type or Patrick Mahomes or somebody like that."

Foster referred to the very different roughing the passer calls that were and weren't made. Early in the game, during a critical third down, Steelers safety Keanu Neal made what looked to be a textbook tackle on Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence. However, he was flagged and the Jagars were granted a nice gift. 

This kind of officiating immediately made fans think it was going to be one of those games where they are going to call everything. Wrong. Kenny Pickett was trying hard to get the Steelers back in the game before the half when he took a brutal shot from Jacksonville's defensive lineman, Adam Gotsis. The ruling earlier was that Neal used his body weight on Lawrence. If that is true, then Gotsis was trying to drive Pickett's soul from his body. 

Pickett was injured on the play and despite trying to return was unable to. Of course a roughing the passer call doesn't undo Pickett's injury, but it does at least leave the Steelers quarterbacks knowing they aren't protected the same as Lawrence. Instead, the Jaguars were able to take shot after shot at both Pickett and backup Mitch Trubisky without worry of punishment. Foster said that frustrates him more than anything, and thinks that because the Steelers had such a tough quarterback in Ben Roethlisberger for so long, the officials don't see Pittsburgh's quarterbacks in the same light. 

"Situationally the calls were bad for the Steelers, they were 100%. This roughing the passer one, maybe it's because we had Ben [Roethlisberger] for so long, I don't know what it was, but those types of hits, Pittsburgh quarterbacks never get. That wasn't even an egregious hard hit on Trevor Lawrence, but you had them drive Kenny Pickett and Mitch Trubisky both into the ground and not a flag in sight."

The Steelers, with Trubisky at that helm, were not able to stage a fourth-quarter comeback as they had done the week prior. Pittsburgh fell to the Jaguars 20-10.

The Steelers Weren't The Only Team Penalized

Foster's counterpart, Kovacevic, pointed out that the Steelers weren't the only ones being penalized. Jacksonville had 20 additional yards of penalties than Pittsburgh. Unfortunately as Foster added, the real issue wasn't the volume of the penalties, it was the nature of the ones that were called. It was also how odd they were. When Trubisky took over for Pickett, he failed to pick up a first down and it led to Chris Boswell attempting a 56-yard field goal. While Boswell is incredibly accurate and consistent, the field conditions were abysmal. He still made the kick. 

The refs blew a whistle, however. What??? They called offsides on guard Isaac Seumalo. Seumalo said after the game he was baffled, he stood in the same place he always does. Head Coach Mike Tomlin said that in all his years of coaching, he'd never seen this called before. Boswell even took to social media to post photos showing that the Steelers players weren't lined up offsides, the Jaguars were! 

Of course, none of that matters. The Steelers were outplayed by the Jaguars who got an assist from the referees. We should have never been in a position for some blind play-calling to matter so much. However, it does certainly add fuel to the conspiracy theory fire. Seeing things like that make it hard to argue that the NFL has it out or in for certain teams and players.