NFL refs

[Don]

What I don't get over this whole thing is that the sports writer who usually will have ad lib thing that goes like: "Even though the final touchtown is totally illegitmate if team X took care of the ball and didn't squander any of the opportunities in the entire game it'd not have mattered". Never mind how little sense this argument makes, but this seems to be something as a sports writer (not fan) always have to say. While fans can be convinced every game of NBA is actually rigged, I don't ever recall any even halfway well-known sports writer accuse refs of messing things up even when it's quite obvious they did.

But now with the refs pretty much everyone is writing about how they suck. Is it because these are the replacement guys so you don't have to worry about offending the NFL so you can talk like that? I mean consider everyone considers the refs screwed them whenever you lose a game, replacement refs or otherwise, the fact that you don't see any professionals writing about that suggests it must be taboo or something. It's pretty much like reading a message board. Not that the content from sports writers are any better than a message boards, but if I want to hear conspiracy theory about how refs are messing up the game I can 10 better ones from 10 random guys on a board somewhere.

[Flip]

I agree with you. I thought in the first few weeks that the refs were getting a very bad rap from the announcers, coaches, players, and writers. They all sort of knew that they could pile on these refs, unfairly, solely because they are replacement refs. I mean look, when the 'real' refs come back, there will still be awful calls and even game deciding fuck ups (lets all not forget http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3594778). When that happened, though, the league chalked it up as 'Well, it happens.'

Now, the refs are brutally getting battered with every whistle and non-whistle. It doesnt matter what they do and the players/coaches/pundits feel as if they are entitled to beat the living shit out them even though this kind of negativity never happens with any other sport in regards to officiating. Its really a sight to see. If, in some weird world, you never knew these were replacement refs i do not think they would be getting the kind of treatment they are getting.

Football itself, is pretty much a stupid sport in that the officiating effects the outcome more so than any other mainstream sport. Basketball might be a close second. In any given play there are probably a handful of calls that could or could not be made which is a big deal! I grew up playing and following baseball mainly, so I'm glad my Nationals are doing well this season and I can not pay attention to football for a while longer.

[Don]

Well to be fair refs, even regular ones, can be intimidated by players/coaches/crowd which is why the home court advantage even exists in the first place. Studies show good players usually don't feel any pressure from being on the road, which you'd hope so because you're paying $10-20 million for a guy and it'd really suck if he gets scared just because a lot of people are yelling 'Boooooo'. So the replacement refs probably get intimidated even easier because they're new and no one respects them. They probably don't know the rules or what to watch for as well. That's fine. The fans can rail on them and that's fine because we rail on the real refs too, and anyone armed with a slow motion + rewind can show you how every game your favoriate team plays in is rigged in the other team's favor. But the announcers/sports writers/etc aren't supposed to do that. They're always supposed to go to some nonsensical 'good team overcome adversity' deal, probably because if you want a thorough analysis there's always the 5 guys on a message board who has watched every play 5 times to show why his team was screwed, and you're not going to beat that given the limited you've to look at anything while it's live. For humor, you can't even come close to the stuff people can rail about on a message board. So, I think it's some kind of unwritten rule that sports writers/announcers don't rail on refs because it's pointless. Leave that to the fans.

I'm guessing football and basketball are simliar in that every play there's probably 5 things you can call a foul on but you obviously can't just call a foul on every play because nobody wants to watch that. I don't think people are even really that interested in getting all the calls right as that'd mean you basically have no home court advantage for all practical purposes and that kind of defeats the purpose of seeding.

[Zeus]

With each passing week it's apparent that the refs are controlling the game with missed/bad calls. It's almost unbearable to watch it's gotten so damned bad. This isn't just people dumping on them, they're doin' a horrible job. My team is actually doin' well, it has nothing to do with my team getting screwed. It's just bad football when you have 25 penalties called every game (that's, on average, about once every 4 plays.....WAAY too much). With instant replay, there shouldn't be such blatant fuck-ups as the Seattle-GB game yet it's still happening.

It's just plain horrible no matter how you spin it