Bears player says ref hip-checked him while preparing to throw taunting flag

The Pittsburgh Steelers' 29-27 win over the Chicago Bears on Monday night was a wild one.

There was drama, a few big plays and a bit of controversy ⁠— and that just in the fourth quarter.

As for the controversy, Pittsburgh led 23-20 with under 4 minutes to play when Bears linebacker Cassius Marsh sacked Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger on a third-and-7 play from the Chicago 47.

Marsh got up, celebrated and then looked at the Steelers bench, perhaps uttering a few words. For some reason, that drew a flag for taunting.

Given the first down on the play, the Steelers ended up kicking a 52-yard field goal, and those three points were kind of important, right?

But that's only part of the story. Marsh said he was hip-checked by referee Tony Corrente, who is in his 27th NFL season as an official.

"I think it's pretty clear to everybody who saw it, I wasn't taunting and I've been doing the celebration my whole career," Marsh told reporters after the game. "It's just sad to see stuff like that happen in a close game like that. It's just rough man. I don't want to say too much because y'all know how it is.

"But the one thing that I will say is on my way to the sideline, I got hip-checked by the ref, and it's pretty clear. If I were to do that to a ref or even touch the ref, we'd get kicked out of the game and possibly suspended and fined. So I just think that that was incredibly inappropriate. And that's all I'll say about that."

You might be thinking a ref wouldn't do something like that, but it sure appears as if that's exactly what happened in this video from Will Brinson of CBS Sports:

What do you think? Do you think Marsh is right? Or was it an accident?

Corrente gave the following explanation on the flag to pool reporter Adam Hoge: “I saw the player, after he made a big play, run toward the bench area of the Pittsburgh Steelers and posture in such a way that I felt he was taunting them.”

The video, however, clearly shows Corrente threw the flag after contact was made with Marsh. And Corrente was the one who initiated the contact.