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The Referee Problem: Its Effects and A Proposed Solution

Percy : 9/16/2014 9:08 am
The whole Colts/Eagles game (pretty well-played, at a level above the Giants' capabilities) turned on two bad referee calls: the phony horse collar penalty on the Colts that avoided a punt back to the Colts instead of a Philly first down and the missed, but obvious and indisputable pass interference call against Philly that should have been called, but was not, that would have reversed the Luck interception that handed the game to Philly. Lots of what was called as pass interference or illegal contact in last Sunday's games (the Giants/Cards being only one example) was not called as either in this game.

What's the point of watching guys play their hearts out (to say nothing of their making so much money) to get outcomes like this? What do team rankings and standings mean in such a chaotic, unevenly governed playing environment? Not much. Are we to watch, buy tickets, and suffer through all the ads and the delays just to see the manner in which the refs will screw up the next game you happen to be watching? (Without TV, of course, and play review made available to fans on TV, much of this would be missed altogether.)

There can be no legitimate comparison of teams' results when they are determined, as they so obviouslyand disastrously are, by these continuing bad and blown ref calls. I have no certain idea what the answer to this is, but, if the NFL is to be preserved -- and, as it is, it is being destroyed -- an answer must be found.

Here's something to at least think about as useful, perhaps necessary, for next season and the future: (i) make all -- that is ALL -- wrong or blown calls, including those not called, reviewable; (ii) raise the limit on such reviews that can be demanded by the head coaches to some higher number (five or eight or whatever), removing team time-outs, as they do now, for coach reviews not upheld and imposing a new, severe penalty of some kind (25 yards, a point, whatever) for review calls not upheld when the reviewing team's timeouts above three have been exhausted; (iii) keep and publish post-game records of call-reversals resulting from the wrong or missed call by individual refs, naming them; and (iv) compel the removal or suspension of refs responsible for X number of wrong or blown calls in a single season.

Give us back our NFL!
I think your punishment is too great on the refs  
loafin : 9/16/2014 9:17 am : link
All that will do is make them more gun shy. The goal is to get the call RIGHT. You don't have to have a punishment to make that happen.

Utilize the review/timeout you suggest and let the coaches dispute a penalty or get one called.
Every time  
RetroJint : 9/16/2014 9:46 am : link
they do this, the league gets the same results. Arbitrary calls. Make up calls. Wide divergence between crews in application & interpretation. This will never be solved with part-time refs. Billion dollar industry-part-time refs. Look what happened with MLB. Know what they found out? Their umps are pretty damn good, which is what many of us were saying all along. Oh-they're full-time employees.
aside from the home plate ump  
GIANTSr01 : 9/16/2014 9:50 am : link
it is far easier to umpire in baseball then any other sport. And even for the HP ump, you know exactly where you have to look. NFL refs on the other hand have to watch action all over the field simultaneously (aside from the head referee who focuses almost exclusively on the QB).
actually....  
Greg from LI : 9/16/2014 9:52 am : link
advanced video analysis helped MLB improve its umpiring. Strike zones have become much more consistent leaguewide since the advent of PitchFX. You don't have guys like Eric Gregg anymore with their own strike zone that extends six inches off the plate.

I agree regarding the crying need for fulltime (and younger) officials. The players are faster than ever but the league expects a bunch of 50-60 year olds to be able to keep up with them? There should be a program that targets smart but athletically limited college players, guys who aren't going to play professionally, and train them to be officials in some sort of apprenticeship-type arrangement. The bulk of officials should be in their 30s and 40s.
RE: Every time  
mrvax : 9/16/2014 9:56 am : link
In comment 11865959 RetroJint said:
Quote:
they do this, the league gets the same results. Arbitrary calls. Make up calls. Wide divergence between crews in application & interpretation. This will never be solved with part-time refs. Billion dollar industry-part-time refs. Look what happened with MLB. Know what they found out? Their umps are pretty damn good, which is what many of us were saying all along. Oh-they're full-time employees.


This. The cheap ass owners should pony up and have these guys full time! This is not the 1940's NFL.
RE: actually....  
GIANTSr01 : 9/16/2014 10:04 am : link
In comment 11865969 Greg from LI said:
Quote:
advanced video analysis helped MLB improve its umpiring. Strike zones have become much more consistent leaguewide since the advent of PitchFX. You don't have guys like Eric Gregg anymore with their own strike zone that extends six inches off the plate.

I agree regarding the crying need for fulltime (and younger) officials. The players are faster than ever but the league expects a bunch of 50-60 year olds to be able to keep up with them? There should be a program that targets smart but athletically limited college players, guys who aren't going to play professionally, and train them to be officials in some sort of apprenticeship-type arrangement. The bulk of officials should be in their 30s and 40s.


Wasn't that the Giants draft strategy this year?
Percy:  
PeterS : 9/16/2014 10:33 am : link
I've been advocating that every play be reviewable for years. Ray Lewis had it right when he said that the replay officials in New York should be allowed to intervene and correct the on-field call.
The NFL is getting exactly what it wants  
rsjem1979 : 9/16/2014 10:49 am : link
It wants every game to come down to the last seconds, and when you tell officials to call a tighter game, you give them more control over achieving that outcome.
I think the age/athleticism or lack there of for the officials  
Giants11 : 9/16/2014 11:07 am : link
is the biggest issue. The league is pretty advanced in it's technology of breaking down the officials and sending them a video re-cap of their game that week complete with mistakes. The concept that you need "full time" officials has been talked about for 40 years. I don't think that makes a difference at all. I agree totally the calls have been horrific, and the fact that they won't even allow incidental contact in the secondary where the receiver is not obstructed or displaced is ridiculous. I'm sure the league takes a point of emphasis each year and hounds the officials to death afterwards in the game re-cap and video they get sent if the deem that they missed "illegal contact" in the secondary. Thats why whenever there is the least amount of doubt the flag comes flying. I do believe there is accountability from the league itself for blown calls like the Harvin play, We just don't hear about it until they don't get a playoff assignment
Why is it  
Spyder : 9/16/2014 11:15 am : link
that no one ever brings up the real reason the refs are not full time?

These guys need to be incorruptible, impossible for Vegas to payoff. The only way the NFL can do that is have men who have reputations to protect, attorneys, judges, accountants etc whose reputations mean far more to them then mere money.

I'm sure the NFL has considered FT refs thousands of times, but have come up with no better alternative. I'd love to hear one myself, because the refs have been godawful this year.

But I don't think they are crooked and paid off.
when I think of attorneys and judges....  
Greg from LI : 9/16/2014 11:17 am : link
...the first word that pops to mind isn't "incorruptible".
True  
Spyder : 9/16/2014 11:20 am : link
bad choice of words for professionals. Are all judges and attorneys corruptible? Do you think the NFL isn't watching these guys like hawks anyway?
This all reminds me of the NBA in the late 90s early 2000s  
SB : 9/16/2014 11:25 am : link
...when the league wanted more contact fouls called so the "stars" would be able to put up more points and highlight plays. But players, knowing they'd get the calls, would initiate contact with no intention of actually making a viable shot, just to get the free throws. Games became a freakin whistlefest (they might still be, I don't know, I haven't watched the NBA since that Kings-Lakers conference final travesty).

Anyway, that's what's going on now in the NFL. Just chuck it and hope you get the PI or holding call. Poor quality play plus constant penalties (and play stoppage) has made the game tedious in the past few years.
I'm sure they are  
Greg from LI : 9/16/2014 11:26 am : link
And I'm sure they'd watch full-time refs, too.

In any case, I really think the officials need to be younger. I'm sure these guys do their best to stay in shape, but it's a simple fact of aging that reflexes, speed and eyesight have all diminished in men who are in their 50s and 60s when compared to men in their 30s and 40s.
Well they could start by hiring refs that aren't blind  
nicky43 : 9/16/2014 11:39 am : link
Then they could eliminate a lot of bullshit penalties. Then, they absolutely need to make penalties reviewable. If they are going to make so many obvious bad calls they have to make them reviewable. The refs got the win for Phili last night.

But I think the Refs should be reviewing their own calls. This new Center they set up in NY could serve that purpose well. When the cameras catch a obvious bad call the refs in NY can contact the game ref and have them stop play and review the call. It should not be on the coaches to police the bad refs. The refs should be doing this themselves and shame on the NFL for not already having an oversight system for bad calls.



Let's face it,  
Doomster : 9/16/2014 11:42 am : link
all refs do not call the game the same way....and yet they get paid pretty good and don't get it right.....

The NFL may be peaking....it's looking like all downhill from here....
Agree  
Oliver : 9/16/2014 12:01 pm : link
Following last night's game, I told my wife I am not watching NFL football games for the rest of the tear. I'll watch CFL games instead. She asked why and I told her that the officiating flat out sucks. With over 9 years of on the field view, I have seen plenty of wrong calls, but this year it is not only disrupting the play, determining the winners, but gives rise to the suspicions above. The NFL is no longer a sport- it is a business and without a real Ombudsman it can become corrupt. It may not be that yet, but with the amounts of money involved, particularly with the proliferation of Fantasy games, it is getting out of control.

Solutions: all of the above are sensible. It should start with a review of each game by people knowledgeable of the rules followed by suspension of an entire crew making more than one noticeable bad call. The comment about watching the players play hard, then seeing the outcome ruined ny a flow of bad calls is sickening. And with so much emphasis on safety, the simple penalty call of 'roughing the passer' isn't always good enough. A defensive player putting his head down and spearing a QB (often a team's season rides on the shoulders of the QB) that has just thrown a ball or is in the act should result in an immediate trip to the shower followed by at least a one game suspension. A horse collar is clearly defined in the rules. When an entire unit doesn't understand, they should get a suspension- no pay, no perks and a bag over heir heads.

It started in the pre season and has carried over. Reffing is hard work. And mistakes will be made. But the first couple of weeks this year is shameful. We are throwing a flag on the refs. Get it right or get out, And most of these games are only of minimal interest to Giants' fans, but they are of interest to fans who love football.
Start a petition and once you get a fair amount of signatures  
montanagiant : 9/16/2014 12:04 pm : link
It most likely will catch fire in the social media outlets and gain mainstream coverage
and one thing that really has to stop  
Giants11 : 9/16/2014 12:13 pm : link
is this rushing up to the line of scrimmage garbage to try and get the ball snapped real quick before the other coach has a chance to decide to challenge. The refs should slow that down and not rush to put the ball in play. I'm not advocating holding onto the ball forever, just saying the other team should have more than a few seconds to decide to challenge. You have the challenge rule in place, give it a chance to be enforced correctly...
Is your issue with the NFL's rules, or  
SwirlingEddie : 9/16/2014 12:23 pm : link
with the officials' enforcement of those rules? While interdepedent, these two are not the same thing and should not be confused. Personally, I have a problem with both right now.
At some point soon the NFL Management will say WTF ...  
Houston : 9/16/2014 2:13 pm : link
and send a super secret email to all officails and tell them to start swallowing the flags - especially on the illegal contact calls ~~ those are a joke! They also need to make these Ref's full time employee's!
Percy  
Eric from BBI : Admin : 9/17/2014 12:18 pm : link
I hope you received my thank-you e-mail. Please e-mail me if you did not.
RE: Percy  
Percy : 9/17/2014 12:28 pm : link
In comment 11868065 Eric from BBI said:
Quote:
I hope you received my thank-you e-mail. Please e-mail me if you did not.


Did. Thanks. Please see separate note just sent.
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