[Mega-Merged] Refs at it again... (1 Viewer)

[MamaRoux]

Did you see the Dallas vs New York game? 3 straight penalties to help Dallas try to win the game, including doing away with a 1st and 27 yards to go, while giving them 15 yards. These Ref's are pathetic.

THAT! What an egregious situation THAT was! I’m so happy to NOT be betting any more on this insanely biased League where Goodell ( I suppose) is making situational football just too obvious and it didn’t start with us last season but the way we were clearly booted OUT of our winning drive was about as obvious to the Nation that American football fans now KNOW just how corrupted this League is. I wonder how the Big Betters from Vegas are taking this abuse or have these games been rigged FOR the spreads? I haven’t paid attention to the Vegas Lines just so I won’t be tempted so if anyone IS paying attention to that aspect of these games? Please let us ALL KNOW! Thanks and WHODAT! 2 more games until the BYE and that’s when we should get a huge shot of more encouragement when DREW BREES RETURNS to us!

 

[Saintslfc13]

I'm not going to go as far as to say that the refs are getting paid under the table or whatever, I have no proof of that so I can't really say that, but I will say it wouldn't surprise me. That aside, I really don't think making the refs full-time league employees is magically going to make them call games based on infringements they actually see nor overturn the obviously wrong calls that they're already not overturning even when they're allowed too do so. It's hard to believe it's entirely incompetence at this point as it's just too often and some of these things that aren't being overturned are clearly bad calls. They've added the "clear and obvious hinderance" thing for PI reviews and I'm fairly certain I heard one of the officiating analysts* the other day say that "the officials trying to figure out if you could call it the right way in real time and if they don't think that you can then they won't change the call" to cover their ***** regarding not overturning those calls, which completely defeats the purpose of the replay review in the first place. For me I think most of the refs are cutting off their nose to spite their face as they feel like the league probably didn't do enough to "protect them" after the NFCCG.

* - Which as I've stated before is completely ridiculous that "officiating analyst" is a paid position on NFL broadcasts, that honestly should've been the last straw for the league when the people that carry their product are bringing people in to tell us all why the calls are called that way. Even those guys lately haven't been towing the party line for the bad calls this year as much as have done in previous years.

 

[Stalwart385]

There need to be ramifications. Hopefully the new CBA addresses it.

 

[DaveXA]

Just a reminder, the officials' association just signed off on their own CBA a few weeks ago, so, there won't be any consequences for the officials who are missing easy calls.

 

[saintlyn8]

Good stuff ^ - Thanks!

I just don't understand why the NFL does not take complete control of officiating. I can't think of another major company where such a critical part of their revenue-producing product, the officiating in the NFL's case, is not under the control of the big company. The cost of converting the officials to all "Full Time Employees" would be trivial compared to owners' yearly revenue.

I don't understand this at all. Until the NFL converts all Refs to employees of the league, officiating will be a major problem. In the sports bar where I watched the Sunday game, it wasn't a Saints bar. They had all the noon games on TVs. It seemed like nearly every fan of every team was screaming about the bad officiating. I can't understand why the NFL has part-time employees as refs. The NFL has far less control and the less ability for legit performance management if the refs were full-time employees of the league. Can someone help me and explain why the NFL keeps over 80% of the refs as part-time employees? - thx

Ive always wondered the exact same thing - and ive come to the same conclusion that Survivng Saint did - plausible deniability. What better way to shift games this way or that then have incompetent refs - with technology constantly improving, cameras, angles tv’s / monitors, there is no reason the officiating shouldn't be improving along with it- but it’s not, in fact, its probably worse then i have ever seen it, and by a large margin. Why? With the amount of money the league rakes in there is absolutely Zero reason to not have full time officials. Why are such a huge chunk of refs so old? I get the experience part, but honestly someone at that age isnt going to track the field very well, experience or not - especially with a game that is this fast - younger full time officials dedicated to the game and the rules that can actually track the ball + players + i dont know maybe the fact that someones hand is on the upper collar and not the face?? Again, i think something like that gives them less ability to explain away the absolute rank garbage that the nfl officials have become. Honestly they are just an absolute embarrassment on a weekly basis.

 

[Surviving Saint]

with technology constantly improving, cameras, angles tv’s / monitors, there is no reason the officiating shouldn't be improving along with it- but it’s not, in fact, its probably worse then i have ever seen it, and by a large margin.

Thats the biggest thing. Look at where the officials place the ball after a play. They give some teams an extra foot, and some they place the ball almost a yard shy of where the player went down. Thats by design. With the technology today, they could put nano sensors in a football, use lasers or something to get the exact spot the ball went down. Why is there even a chain gang? The refs put the ball where they want it anyway so the whether a team gets a first down or not is because of the officials. A game of inches and the refs hold them in their pocket.

The NFL comes up with new rules every year and then takes some away. The game of football is simple. All these rules dont make it anymore complicated. Its an excuse for the incompetence just like the speed of the game, the age of the refs etc. There is 100 video angles on every play, and yet instant replay they only show you what they want you to see. Unsubstantiated video evidence. Lol.

When they make a bad call there is a booth in NY thats monitoring the game. Why cant we have 1 official on the field that gets relayed the message to make the rght call every single time? The others are just a dog and pony show.The entire game is a sham. I love to watch football and I actually watch less and less as time goes on. Ive watched 2 Saints games this year. When Im home, if my kids want to do something during the game, I cut the TV off. I used to devote Sudays to football, but my only interest is in gambling on the games and I dont need to watch every game. I have one button updates on my spreadsheets so I have all the stats I can get and the formulas spit out a point spread, power rankings etc. Ill watch if I have nothing else to do but my family and work comes first. The NFL could be better but they dont want that. A fair game doesnt generate the same money. The owners know it. They have all had decades to figure it all out and they make money hand over fist now.

 

[Kyle brister]

And to think, many people were calling us conspiracy theorists and tin foil hat wearers after the NFCCG last season.....

Surprising what a little taste (or in the case of the Lions a big taste) of the same treatment can change so many minds from "human error, get over it" to "these games ARE rigged" very quickly.

Just 6 games into the season.

The poor Lions fans have been getting games stolen from them for years. If you think the league hates the Saints, you should try being a Lions fan.

 

[Doug B]

Back in the days before instant replay and challenges — refs, I believe worked harder to get the calls right. Now they know there’s a safety net — so they don’t work as hard.

Maybe I'm misremembering ... but weren't officials' conferences A LOT more prevalent back in the 80s? Not 7-man ref huddles 20 times a game, but lots of quick "What did you see?" questions, talking amongst themselves, etc.?

 

[bobad]

typical over-officiating in NFL

Not so much "over officiating" as "selective officiating".

 

[ilvdsnts]

It’s not fixed.

It’s not rigged.

It’s just poor officiating.

At risk of going on with a long thesis, I am going to tell y'all the reasons why I don't think it is just poor officiating. As a preface, I am telling you these things as someone who has officiated high school football for 19 years. First of all, you have to have a minimum of 5 years experience in HS to move to college and another 5 in college to move up to the NFL. You go through many on field camps and clinics and class room/film study, even if you just want to be a HS official, but even more if you want to move up. Now, some nepotism plays a part of someone getting their initial shot but once in a college conference, even if you got there because your daddy was in that conference, you won't stay unless you are a pretty good official. Then the same thing goes for the next jump up to the NFL, and in between you probably did some Arena League, World League, NFL Europe, etc. Now we all watch college FB, and many of us have watched our kids or ourselves play in HS, and while there are some mistakes and judgements you disagree with, its not at the level of egregiousness we have been seeing in the NFL. So are you telling me that the best guys in college who were good enough to move up, all of a sudden don't know the difference between a face and a shoulder when they get to the NFL?
Now lets talk about the types of errors. Their are a couple axioms that officials have drilled into them from day 1. One is that you do everything in your power to avoid an inadvertant whistle ie, You don't officiate with the whistle in your mouth, we always say "see the ball twice" at the end of a play before blowing the whistle to make sure you weren't faked out and someone else has the ball, and if you blow one you are treating the crew to dinner/drinks after the game. The other is that it is OK/understandable to NOT call a penalty that is there because everyone understands that 5-7 officials, depending on the level, can't see everything that 22 players do, but you should NEVER call something that didn't happen because you THOUGHT it happen. A good example of this is say an official is on the back side of a player and has a view of the back of the helmet, a player reaches around the front and you see the head jerk as they are going to the ground, but you did not actually see the hand grab the facemask because you are behind it. You would have to make an assumption that he grabbed it and you could be wrong which would result in a phantom call. The theory is, if you are asked by your supervisor why you called something and your answer begins with "Because I thought he...." then stop right there, if you THOUGHT it was a penalty then it wasn't. Don't call it unless you KNOW it was.
The "mistakes" being made in the NFL, are mistakes that go against the grain of everything an official is always taught. Inadvertant whistle on a scoop and score loose ball, phantom holdings, phantom hands to the face. Missing things is one thing, but the number of phantom calls is outrageous and is not mistakes a seasoned official at ANY level should make and THOSE are the 2 reasons why I can't fathom that it is just poor officiating.

 

[DaveXA]

It's not just poor or incompetent officiating. I've seen and been around football long enough to know better. I'm with ilvd. I've been on the sidelines for pop warner, high school and college football games. I've watched enough replay reviews to know that officials almost always go with the play called when it's a close call. The fumble turned incompletion was a complete reversal of the trend to stick with the call on the field.

The 2 hands to the face were called after the same player had been doing the same technique for 3 quarters, and has been doing his entire career without a single hands to the face called. Then the same official penalized him twice, both on 3rd down plays.

In all of my 40 years of watching football, I've never seen 2 hands to the face penalties called like that on back to back drives. I mean, it makes no sense. He doesn't call the exact play which happened dozens of times earlier in the game, but then does that? They're being entirely too obvious here.

It's ridiculous that we're still having this discussion and yet some people think it's still incompetency or poor calls. There's more to the story, clearly.