SEATTLE — Richard Sherman of the Seattle Seahawks took an opportunity last week to criticize NFL officiating for what he deemed incorrect calls, almost daring the league to fine him for being outspoken.

“Sometimes the truth is the truth, it’s the truth,” the All-Pro cornerback said last week. “It is what it is. This is basically reality TV so I guess I’m good for ratings, probably.”

Kicker Dan Carpenter of the Buffalo Bills complains to referee Walt Anderson after being run into recklessly by Richard Sherman of Seattle. Only an offside call was made. Associated Press/John Froschauer

So it seemed almost fitting that just a few days after making some bold comments, Sherman was at the center of another officiating flap in Monday night’s 31-25 victory against the Buffalo Bills.

Again, NFL refs were in the spotlight of a prime-time game that left the league scrambling to provide explanations of what happened and the mistakes that were made.

Any time Dean Blandino, the NFL’s head of officiating, has to send an explanatory tweet during a game about a mistake, it’s not good for the league.

“We are absolutely going to address it,” Blandino told NFL Network. “Anytime you have a sequence like that at any point during the game, we want to see what happened and just walk through the steps of where the breakdown was. Regardless of the outcome of the game, we are going to address the situation with our crew.”

For the third time in five seasons, the day after a Seattle win on Monday was spent breaking down the role of officiating mistakes in the Seahawks’ victory.

The latest black eye for the refs came when Walt Anderson’s crew chose not to flag Sherman for unnecessary roughness as he attempted to block Dan Carpenter’s field-goal attempt at the end of the first half. Sherman was penalized for being offside – and was determined to be unabated to the kicker – but the play wasn’t stopped in time to prevent Sherman from getting a piece of the kick and crashing recklessly into Carpenter’s legs.

“Whenever it comes to player safety, we want to look at these fouls,” Blandino said. “It’s something that we stress with our referees when it comes to the quarterbacks and the kickers with roughing the kicker and roughing the passer, so we certainly don’t want to miss calls like that.”

The fact that no unnecessary roughness call was made created another set of problems – including an injury timeout that forced Carpenter off the field – that weren’t handled well. Most damaging for the Bills was the play clock not being properly reset as Carpenter lined up for a second field goal attempt, from 48 yards, and Buffalo being called for delay of game. After the 5-yard penalty, Carpenter’s attempt was wide right.

What seemed to be a chaotic mishandling by officials at the time proved critical in the final moments of the game when Buffalo drove inside the Seattle 10 and needed a touchdown rather than just a field goal.

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