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I want mandatory, minimum sentences
How do you hold them accountable? It’s an impossible job and they’re still the best in the world at it. There’s no one better to replace them with, and if you try to replace everyone who fucks up you’ll immediately run out of qualified officials.
How do you hold them accountable?
By not renewing their contracts, which are year to year. And poorly graded officials don’t get playoff assignments.
You’re right about these folks being the best, and it took a long time and a lot of effort to get there.
You’re right about these folks being the best, and it took a long time and a lot of effort to get there.
That’s exactly my point though. College refs are, by and large, even worse than NFL refs. Who do you replace the bad refs with when you don’t renew their contracts?
Making them full time officials, better training, in game video reviews, booth officials calling obvious infractions or overriding obvious bad calls, fixing the current rules to actually comply with physics.
Bluntly speaking the NFL doesn’t care. Ratings are always great and they are selling merchandise hand over fist. The only way they’ll consider changing is if they see revenue decrease or lawsuits are filed over games potentially being rigged by officiating for gambling purposes.
The solutions are all right there: hire them as full time employees, give the best ones a salary that beats being the FOX or CBS rules analyst, and utilize every bit of technology that eliminates errors fans see immediately during a replay.
Will they do this? Of course not, unless forced.
I still think the problem is more the rules than the refs.
College refs are worse than NFL refs and yet big time college games are usually much less impacted by the officiating.
Look at the Michigan vs OSU game - the officiating was so much better in that game compared to the average NFL game from a viewer standpoint.
I vastly prefer how DBs are officiated in the NCAA - there are far less ticky tack DPIs and holds.
Came here to say this. It is the rules and the ever increasing rules that don’t let people actually play the game. DPI is very “all over the place”. Same thing with roughing the QB.
I agree. You hear this in every sport that refs are the worst they have ever been but I think reffing has become harder than ever. In every sport, athletes have gotten faster and the rules have changed to encourage quicker play in basketball, hockey, soccer, etc. Rules have also gotten more convoluted and grey making it harder to make quick, easy decisions. Refs are asked to do an extremely difficult job where they are set up to fail.
Football is just an impossible sport to officiate well, especially at the speed of the pro game. Even if refs don’t miss a single obvious call, there will be plenty of borderline calls for people to complain about that are just a subjective decision.
I mean, there were a couple of fouls the Bills committed that were deserved, but when the disparity is that big and there multiple blatant no-calls then it’s mind-boggling and really makes you question the integrity of NFL officiating, especially when it happens multiple times like when the Dolphins also played at Philadelphia.
The bad ones don’t get assigned playoff games so they kinda sorta are
Officials are held accountable. Maybe the author should have contacted the NFL on that subject instead of spending his time puking out this ignorant screed, including the bit about “part time” as if that makes a fucking case.
The only thing close to a valid point was about the horse collar non-call.
It’s just a fact of life man. Refs fucking suck everywhere
They absolutely should have called that but things were evened out imo due to the flop.
Problem with that argument is it was a late hit on a QB that was to the head/neck area. It was a penalty whether Josh fell down or not.
Josh falling down just helped the refs make the correct call.
A flop would be if he fell down and the guy didn’t even touch him.
Also Josh was hit in the head another time and didn’t get the call, there were at least 2 DPIs that didn’t get called, Kincaid got obliterated as a defenseless receiver and didn’t get a flag. Phantom holding call on the bills that negated a 15 yard play.
God there were so many and I know I forgot a few of them. Crazy game to watch
To whom? The uneducated masses who have never read the NFL rule book? No. To the NFL? They already are. It’s just not public because the NFL and refs know damn well the result would be a lynch mob and conspiracy theories abound.
And no matter what anyone says no one wants instant replay penalty calls. It’d make cricket seem like a short game.
If that was Jalen Hurts fleeing the pocket getting tackled with a hand near his collar would there be this many Eagles fans suddenly super in to the nuanced interpretations of the letter of the law?
You would think the horse collar rule was codified by Congress or something. “BUT THERE’S NO KNEE BUCKLING!”
“OH WHAT YOU DON’T BELIEVE WHAT THE REFEREE SAID POST GAME? I THINK REFEREES SHOULD KNOW! RARELY WRONG!”
“YOU SEE THERE WAS NO DOWN FORCE APPLIED BY THE DEFENDER’S HAND AND HE WASN’T BEING PULLED TO THE GROUND! THE HAND AROUND THE COLLAR WAS FOR SUPPORT ONLY!”
It’s hilarious. Then you say let’s assume all that is true, should it have been intentional grounding?
“THAT’S A TOTALLY SEPARATE ISSUE!”
Philly fans would (rightfully) be losing their minds if that series of events squashed a red zone opportunity.
Yes. Absolutely they should. Especially when they have 35754 angles of the replay, in 4k, and STILL get it wrong.
Should? Yes. Will they? No. The official’s union holds all of the cards ever since the replacement ref fiasco.
Funny part is that the refs now, are basically just as bad as the replacement ones.
The only thing we haven’t had is a mess like the Fail Mary. Outside of that, I’d argue that the current refs are actually worse than the replacement refs.
Easy to forget how bad the replacements were 10 years later
I think you are massively understating or just forgetting how awful the replacement refs were. As bad as things are now, it was at a whole other level. It was so bad that within a month of the season, the NFL gave them almost literally everything they wanted.
Exactly. This is why I laugh whenever I hear someone say how the league should do something about it. It’s not that they won’t. It’s that they can’t.
I disagree, it is more likely they don’t care enough to change it. The current system makes more money directly and indirectly (gambling). The minuet, the net profits dip because of bad officiating they will change it overnight
You’re ignoring the point being made here: what, concretely, do you do to improve officiating? You can’t just fire bad refs because the guys you replace them with are going to be worse.
You could make them full time employees and compensate them based on how well they perform like most any other profession
The refs don’t want that and the NFL doesn’t have the leverage to force them
They should, but should also be supplied with proper technology to make a proper call. They’re using their old-ass human eyeballs for everything and refusing to make things easier on themselves.