NFL Week 13 thread: The league tries to hide its horrible officiating

Ha. I know you won that one, I think I heard that somewhere, but the "overreaction" line set by the oddsmakers ended up a point and a half away from what the final score. I think that was a properly reacted line.

 

How much of an overreaction was it, really, though? Stanford was favored by a 3 and won by 2.

What do you think the Arizona line should be? 10?

Edit: Written before I saw that LTL wrote the same thing. My fault.

 

Probably 9 or 10. I'd even go up to 11. Certainly more than a TD.

 

Don't get me wrong. I kinda like Arizona at 6. Not sure I'd touch it if you were setting the line.

 

This is the hidden elephant in the room.
Everyone is afraid to say they see the problem, but they know it's there.
And she's not the only one.

 

A guy who posts on the Website balloon-juice.com under a pseudonym is ordinarily that politics/pets/foodie site's expert on health insurance and medical care policy. He's also a college soccer ref, and he posted recently that the relatively high turnover rate among NFL officials in recent years is likely the problem, based on his own experiences moving up the ref food chain. But of course, the league has to replace guys who age out, and after a relatively long period of stability, that need becomes acute. It is possible if not likely the problem will self-correct in a few seasons. But it sure would help if they cut the rule book in half and deep-sixed replay.

 

Not really. Realistically, a crew only does one game a week, right? What kind of training and testing could be done to make it a full-time job, all year?

 

Don't hold your breath on the replay part.

 

How would "training" in the middle of March have helped the Cardinals-49ers official to NOT make that horrific personal foul call?

How would "training" in the middle of May have helped the Browns-Ravens official see that a Raven was in the neutral zone during the last FG?

Yes, athletes "train" all-year round. And they still fumble and run wrong routes and drop passes. Being a football game official is no more of a "full-time" job than someone holding a first-down chain.

 

Oh, I know that. TV would never allow its power to be diluted in that way. But it's affecting the game for the worse in many ways. One that doesn't get enough attention is that officials are calling touchdowns and turnovers at the drop of a hat knowing they can always have it reversed on replay. That breeds bad habits. It'd be better if there was no replay, and if you blew enough calls in a season, out you go. But there's been replay for a long time now, and I don't think it's as much of a problem as the constant rule book tinkering to improve fantasy scores.

 

Michael, that's the other elephant in the room here.
The league needs to get that whore-stink off its clothes even more than it needs to revamp officiating.

 

It's excruciating that you can't trust your eyes when you watch a game anymore. Any time there's a big play, you have to wait to see if there will be a flag thrown near or away from the play and/or a replay review. You literally can't bother to celebrate until they kick the extra point, and by then you might be cursing your kicker who just yacked one left to leave your team trailing 21-20.