DeAngelo Hall, the mouth-all-mighty Washington Redskins quarterback who had a sustained and animated outbrust at referee Dana McKenzie Sunday in Pittsburgh, said the official was as much the blame for him facing disciplinary action from the NFL as the defensive back.
The cornerback was ejected from the game after taking off his helmet and berating head linesman Dana McKenzie. He will scheduled to meet with commissioner Roger Goodell and faces possible suspension. Television replays showed just one angle, which displayed Hall beside himself.
“From that particular camera angle you can’t see what that ref’s saying to me,” Hall said on a Washington, D.C. radio show. “So it looks like I’m just out there giving him a piece of my mind and he’s smiling and walks away. And that’s not the case at all. He’s dishing it out just as much as I’m dishing it out.”
Hall, who is trying to get video from different camera angles of the incident “so you can see both sides,” said he wants to meet with Goodell “to tell our side of the story, just like them.”
“But me and the ref was equally at fault on that particular play,” he said.
Hall, who likes to talk, was far from finished.
“It’s not a system in place where … they’re the good cops and we’re the criminals. It has to be an even playing field, a level playing field,” Hall said. “If they want us to go out there and respect them, they have to do the same thing. They have to give us the same kind of respect that I feel like we’ve been giving them as players, as referees that ultimately control some of the calls in these games. Nobody is going out there trying to bully the referees, and likewise they shouldn’t be out there trying to bully us.”
Redskins coach Mike Shanahan tried to defend Hall, somewhat, saying Hall would not have gone off if a flag had been called on the Sanders for what the coach said was a “full nelson” wrestling move that put Hall on the ground.
Hall said he tried to walk away from the Steelers receiver, who got in his “face and tries to, you know, talk trash. I immediately walk away from him, start talking to the ref.”
“I’m just asking (the official) like, ‘Did you not see what just took place right there?’ … For me to walk away from that incident and plead with the ref and beg like, ‘Dude, what do I have to do to get a flag? The dude just slammed me. Nothing happened. I don’t understand what you’re looking at. If you’re going to try to keep this game safe and the way it’s supposed to be played, there’s no way that particular play shouldn’t have drawn a flag.’ “
