It's not victim blaming, play until the whistle has been drilled into every player's head from a young age.
Just because you believe something happened that should cause a whistle, doesn't mean you stop playing. You only stop when it was actually blown. After all, you might actually be wrong about what happened, and it is much better to be safe than sorry. They weren't wrong here, but the point still remains, you continue to play until you have been ordered to stop, not when you feel like it should stop.
I's kind of funny that you make excuses for the players stopping, yet somehow the refs have to be perfect and see everything. If it's okay for the players to not do what has been drilled into their head for ages, surely it must be okay for the refs to miss something. They are humans, they will not get everything right. Doesn't mean that they "aren't doing what they were hired for". Though I guess some people are completely flawless at the job they do...