THE CHEAP SEATS with STEVE CAMERON: When you're bad, not even the obvious calls go your way

Pete Carroll chose the high road after that dispiriting loss to the Rams.

The game’s most critical play came with just minutes to play and the Seahawks trailing 17-10, with a fourth-and-six situation at midfield.

Russell Wilson’s pass, intended for running back DeeJay Dallas, was severely underthrown (a theme of the night, sadly), but Dallas was clobbered by rookie linebacker Ernest Jones long before the ball arrived.

Just to make a pass interference call stone-cold automatic in this case, Jones also pulled both of Dallas’ arms down to render him helpless.

Ironically, when the pass ultimately arrived, it hit Jones — who had never turned his head to look for the ball — square in the back.

And yet, somehow, the most obvious penalty of the season went unnoticed (or at least, uncalled), by the entire troop of officials.

If you are a conspiracy theorist who believes that the money people in the NFL want Los Angeles’ giant market available for telecasts in the postseason, well …

Mark that play as Exhibit A.

CARROLL, though, wouldn’t question the officiating on a call that will make every top 10 list of …

“Are you serious?”

Oh, man.

“I’m not bellyaching about that call,” Carroll said. “We needed to win the game in all the other ways we could win the game.”

Worse, that non-interference blunder was one of two calls that bailed out the Rams, each when their ultimate 20-10 victory might have been in doubt.

That, my friends, was Pete taking a serious detour to reach the high road.

Good for him, but …

I don’t feel the least bit constrained by the NFL and its system of fines, nor do I have to fret about keeping players both professional and confident.

In other words, I can take the low road.

It comes naturally, and no, that’s not because I’m an opinion columnist who enjoys criticizing coaches and athletes.

The low road (a figurative one rather than anything literal) must be in my DNA.

My mother emigrated to the United States when she was 10 years old, and I was about that same age when I learned the lyrics to an iconic song about a famous body of water.

“You take the high road and I’ll take the low road,” we’d sing, “and I’ll reach Scotland ‘afore ye.”

That line comes from lovely tune called “Loch Lomond,” which has been humming along with me forever — and it suggests that “taking the low road” isn’t a soul-crusher, nor does it make you a bad person.

IN THE next days and weeks, we’ll get around to an autopsy on the 2021 Seahawks.

They died from a case of a failed Wilson which, when you substitute football for the medical world, is just about like having a crushed aorta.

Surgery to install an artificial organ (Moderna’s tested but limited “Geno”) was basically unsuccessful, and the patient suffered an extremely poor rehab in the weeks following treatment.

Ultimately, it became obvious that Seattle’s quality of life and offensive performance would continue to suffer — unless barely surviving would be your only goal.

Thus, the Seahawks — now 5-9 with three games remaining – will suffer the first losing season in the decade-long career of their Hall of Fame quarterback.

We can talk about that, and what should be done to get the franchise on a better course going forward, and, um …

Well, continuing on the “low road,” the debate becomes who gets sacrificed, and therefore begins using LinkedIn to study formations for the 2022 season.

For today, though, my beef is with the NFL and its inability to hire capable officials (or give them clear instructions), to make calls in the murky world of pass coverage.

THE RAMS got out of jail in the shadow of their own goal line when, on third down and long with game at 10-10, all-world receiver Cooper Kupp sold the whistle-blowers on the idea that he’d been held — even though contact right at the line of scrimmage was a perfectly legal and legit jam by cornerback Bless Austin.

Of course, Kupp is a contender for league MVP, and poor Bless isn’t even a household name in his own home.

Draw your own conclusion.

Los Angeles turned that terrible call into a jump start for the drive that made the score 17-10.

As we’ve already discussed, the equally anonymous DeeJay Dallas — playing big minutes because the Seahawks had nine players at home in Covid protocol, including leading receiver Tyler Lockett — then got illegally blown up by Ernest Jones to kill the Hawks’ last real chance to tie the game.

Let’s not sugarcoat this …

It was Seattle that got hosed this time around, but you see awful calls in multiple games every week, because nobody — on the field or elsewhere — truly knows what constitutes pass interference or defensive holding.

If they have to buzz from a war room in New York, or upstairs somewhere inside the stadium, so be it.

But this rich and powerful league simply can’t have teams walking off into the night, certain that they were cheated.

Over to you, NFL.

Email: scameron@cdapress.com

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. He also writes Zags Tracker, a commentary on Gonzaga basketball which is published weekly during the season.

Steve suggests you take his opinions in the spirit of a Jimmy Buffett song: “Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On.”