“It’s almost basketball season.” CBS’ Ian Eagle summed up referee Clay Martin’s mistake well during Texans vs. Bills. But the pigskin fanatics are not letting Clay get away with it quite easily. An honest mistake? Nah not really.

With just 36 seconds left in the first quarter, Bills QB Josh Allen sprinted toward the sideline and lost the ball. The Texans scooped up. Thankfully, the refs reviewed the play and got it right, ruling that Allen’s foot was out of bounds before the fumble.

But even a bigger fumble than that? Martin’s, “The runner was out of bounds before he fumbled the basketball,” comment. Come on, seriously? You can’t be mixing up pigskins for basketballs standing on the gridiron on the live telecast. That’s a long day!

But hey, we can’t entirely fault Martin; after all, this guy’s got a basketball background, having been a head coach for over a decade before stepping onto the gridiron. Yes, sir! You read that right.

He started as an umpire in 2015 and quickly climbed the ranks to become a referee in 2018. But it’s all about his career before that. Martin was in the high school sports scene as the head basketball coach. Aha! You see. Now all the cards are falling right into place. A case of, you can take the man out of court but not the court from the man.

But let’s not get carried away with the jokes. Because, while Martin might have tripped on the terminology, he’s definitely no rookie when it comes to sports. He’s spent 21 years in the school district, juggling roles like assistant principal and community education director.  At the end of the day, we’ve all had those moments where we misspeak, especially in high-pressure situations.

But let’s be real, in today’s time and age, officiating as a pro ref, you can’t let such slip-ups. Social media doesn’t show mercy.

Pigskin fanatics won’t let Clay Martin forget the Bills vs. Texans game!

It was like mixing up a touchdown with a slam dunk—just not happening! And the pigskin fanatics, no matter the fanbase, took real problems with it. One fan sarcastically put it: “Get Clay Martin in concussion protocol.” LOL! The panel’s facing backlash as it is. And who can forget the Tua Tagovailoa concussion controversy from 2022? Yeah, it’s not a good look. But dragging in Martin was a rather funny remark.

A comment also noted his history as a basketball coach to make the suffering a bit easy: “A former basketball coach for many years, with a little flub.” By now, we know that folk. But did it stop the others from poking fun? Yeah, you guessed it right. It didn’t.

It wasn’t Bills vs. Texans anymore. More like, both the fanbase came together for the Trollfest. A comment read: “Wrong sport.” And we can bet that after so many reminders about it, Martin would never forget the sport he’s officiating.

Moving on from fun, some fans even took the serious side of things. A comment pointed toward recent shortcomings in the NFL refereeing, stating, “This is how bad NFL officiating is….” Do you need proof? Well, surely, the recently missed facemask foul that kind of took away the Bucs’ chances of a win against the Falcons is still running fresh.

If that wasn’t enough, one fan also suggested that Martin “Should be fined.” Um, well, we don’t know about that. But what we do know is that Clay Martin’s mistake did not change the result of the game as such. So, it’s all fun and games.