Dave Portnoy once again led the backlash against NFL referees on Sunday night after a staggering holding call during the Buffalo Bills game against Baltimore Ravens.
Bills offensive tackle Dion Dawkins was penalized for holding on Ravens linebacker David Ojabo when he only seemed to swipe Ojabo’s hands away when he reached out to grapple him.
It turned a third and 3 into a 2nd and 22 for the Bills in the first quarter of Sunday’s showdown, with the score at 7-7, and the call was immediately slammed on the CBS commentary by Tomy Romo, who branded it ‘terrible’.
Portnoy’s view was, true to style, even more pᴀssionate, with the Barstool Sports founder saying on X: ‘his holding a call was basically a turnover. The NFL has to fix this. Takes points right off the board probably for Buffalo. Explain @NFLcommish.’
In the clip he posted on the platform of the incident, Portnoy says: ‘Listen, I honestly don’t know what we are doing in this league.
‘This is a billion dollar league and you’ve got officials as the most important players on the field.
“Oh! That is not a hold at all, Jim!… That’s a terrible call!” – Tony Romo on a holding call against the Bills that turns 3rd-and-3 into 2nd-and-22������️ #NFL pic.twitter.com/5xQOE6rQ3a
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 20, 2025
This holding a call was basically a turnover. The NFL has to fix this. Takes points right off the board probably for Buffalo. Explain this @nflcommish pic.twitter.com/89v97DoOMV
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) January 20, 2025 
Bills OT Dion Dawkins was penalized for holding on Ravens linebacker David Ojabo
‘This is a holding? That’s holding? It’s a turnover, how are we letting these novice, sucky refs determine it? It makes me want to puke, horrible.’
Watching the replay live on the broadcast, analyst Rome said: ‘Oh, that is not a hold at all. He just swipes his hands down… that’s a terrible call. He (Dawkins) actually perfected the art of what we’re teaching.’
It was another controversial call in a weekend that has been punctured with them in the NFL.
Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes benefited from an early roughing-the-pᴀsser call against Houston Texans which sparked outrage on social media.
Midway through the first quarter at Arrowhead, Texans defender Will Anderson Jr was penalized for a tackle on the Kansas City quarterback a split-second after he released the ball.
‘The good news is the Texans are dominating and their defense is flying around. The bad news is the refs are cheating and they are losing,’ Portnoy said Saturday.
Referees also flagged two Houston defenders for unnecessary roughness after they made slight contact with Mahomes when he slid to the ground at the end of an offensive play.
And after the game, the Texans players were quick to lay blame at the feet of the referees.
‘We knew it was going to be us against the refs going into this game,’ Anderson Jr told reporters.
Head coach DeMeco Ryans echoed that sentiment in his postgame press conference, saying: ‘We knew going into this game, man, it was us vs everybody. When I say everybody, it’s everybody.’
