The Alleged Story Behind The Refs Asking Mike Evans To Sign Something Is Much Funnier Than Asking For An Autograph

On Monday, video of two referees chasing down Bucs star receiver Mike Evans in the tunnel and asking him to sign (or write down) a piece of paper went viral and launched an NFL investigation into what went down.

Officials aren’t supposed to ask players for autographs and that was certainly what appeared to be happening, and in a league where fans are constantly convinced there’s a conspiracy within the officiating of an opposing team, anything that looks like officials acting as fans is a bad look. On Tuesday, the league announced there wouldn’t be any punishment for the refs because they weren’t asking for an autograph, but they were reminded of the optics of it all.

That begs the question, what exactly were they doing? They were clearly getting him to write something down and it’s hard to imagine what that possibly could be if not an autograph. The apparent answer, per Tom Pelissero, is funnier than you could imagine.

Listen, you are free to believe whatever you want but I’m going to be honest, I have a hard time believing that a referee who went to the same school as a player is getting his number after the game in order to connect him with a local golf pro for lessons in the offseason. That said, it’s such a dumb excuse that it might just be true because I can’t imagine coming up with that on the fly, and we do have visual evidence of Mike Evans needing golf lessons.

Hopefully this golf pro in Texas can get him right.