NFL - What's going on?

[Lomax]

Once again, the season has sneaked up on me - and by the time I realise that it's started, the Saints have lost their first two games. Ho hum.

Braving time-zones and a pretty eccentric connection, I watch them make it three in a row. Nothing surprising there, I'm sad to say.

But browsing the site's small print, I find out that all games are now being refereed by random strangers plucked out of the crowd, or something.

Huh???

[kham]

Lingerie League

Not kidding

The atrocity from last night is exploding on the net today, started right after the game.
You got everybody pissed, up to and including guys like Tom Brady
What's it gonna take? Getting his legs broken by someone because one of these Foot Locker temps blows a call?

bet you though, all you will here from the league today is more solidarity, comrades, bullshit.
I just want to see what happens , now that a Wisconsin radio station has posted Goodell's email address and invited listeners to drop him a line, as it were....

[kham]

Oh, Lomax:

Saints currently 0-3
Sorry

edit:

in case you thought was kidding about lingerie -- from Business Insider

Ouch

[Lomax]

In case you thought was kidding about lingerie -- from Business Insider

No - I'm not falling for that, sorry. I'm not that gullible. Wouldn't even work as an April Fool's Day story. I have not lost touch reality so fundamentally as to swallow that. No.

Not even in America - land of the bizarre and home of the pathologically uninhibited.


So: fakes aside, let me see if I've got this right. All the NFL referees are on strike, but the games are going on anyway using anyone they can find? Oh good; that means I can believe that the Saints are only losing due to administrative incompetence. See - i can believe anything. Except the Lingerie thing, of course.

[kham]

I got bad news for you:

That's No-Shit serious -- THAT IS, what some of the replacement officials were doing. You can't make that shit up, and it would be a comedy routine except it's getting guys hurt and costing games.

believe me, when I heard "lingerie league" , I laughed -- didn't even know there was one.
Unfortunately.....

Oh, and now the money angle: Vegas swing money on the botch o rama last night was around 200-250 million. Dollars. But the missileheads running the league don't give a shit, as long as the tv ratings are high. Yeah. Like watching a car wreck on pay per view and looking for the biggest body count

Remember now, player safety and the fans are #1....

[Duncan Edwards]

You should see some of the stuff that's not making headlines. I was at the Tennessee-Detroit game Sunday and that was circus enough even before the near-sighted, clueless, zebras got involved.

[BSink42]

In case you thought was kidding about lingerie -- from Business Insider

No - I'm not falling for that, sorry. I'm not that gullible. Wouldn't even work as an April Fool's Day story. I have not lost touch reality so fundamentally as to swallow that. No.

Not even in America - land of the bizarre and home of the pathologically uninhibited.


So: fakes aside, let me see if I've got this right. All the NFL referees are on strike, but the games are going on anyway using anyone they can find? Oh good; that means I can believe that the Saints are only losing due to administrative incompetence. See - i can believe anything. Except the Lingerie thing, of course.

There's also the fact that Saints Head Coach Sean Payton was suspended for a full year for partaking in a player bounty scandal.

As to the referees: They're not technically on strike, they've been locked out as the Union that the refs are apart of and the NFL Owners cannot come to an agreement on a new CBA, similar to how the players were locked out last year (but was resolved before any regular season games were lost). The NFL instead of making a deal has decided to use refs from the Arena League, College level and High School instead. One big sticking point is that the refs want to keep their pension plan and the Owners want to eliminate it. There are currently no talks between the two sides scheduled and the replacement refs have assignments at least until Week 5.

[kham]

And the NFL of course issues statement that they are totally behind the call in Seattle last night.

I give you Chris Schultz from TSN, who has a good take on things ; and also since he is paid to write, he can do it without wanting to hang someone by their ankles and use them for bayonet practice.

Well, I can say with great confidence after the finish to Monday night's game between the Seahawks and Packers, it just not going to work out for the NFL. It is time to swallow their pride, take the punch and do what is necessary to get the officials back where they are supposed to be.

On the final play, Golden Tate pushed Sam Shields out of the way, which is offensive pass interference. Then, M.D. Jennings had the ball secure across his chest, which means he had control at the end of the play. It was an interception.

And, this is very disturbing, because it was a scoring play was subject to review and still they did not reverse the call. The reason they did not reverse the call is mind-numbing to me. I do not understand at all what they saw and concluded that was so easy to see and conclude.

So moving forward, where do football fans go from here. What should the NFL do? I say give in. It may come across as a point of weakness and maybe it is but, sometimes in life, hopefully not too many times, you're wrong, I am wrong, it's wrong. Whether it is the NFL owners or Roger Goodell himself, it is time to take your ego out of the decision-making process and create a deal as fast as possible.

Now, to you and me, this looks easy. The referees have won because the replacement referees are not experienced enough to call a game effectively each and every play. But there needs to be a separation between logic and emotion. The problem is that that separation does not always happen because ego and competition takes over.

Truth is, there is no competition here. The referees won, the replacement referees lost. It's over. Or is it?

The problem now is that someone has to take a self-image hit and it probably needs to be Roger Goodell as face of the league. But will he do it? It is one thing to privately say you win, I lose. It is another to express it in a public forum.

There are decisions made out of common sense and logic and then there are others made with the influence of emotion and professional title. And that is a problem here; this is a win-lose scenario, not win-win. Is the NFL ready to admit what they have right now is not good enough compared to what they did have? If a decision is not reached soon, then the influence of ego and power control is written all over it.

Come mid-December, what has happened here in late September will be re-visited, not due to a new set of circumstances but because of playoff implications and desires of a 10-win season. It will affect the 49ers, Rams and Cardinals in the NFC West and the Bears, Lions and Vikings in the NFC North. It could also affect who has home-field advantage in the NFC Playoffs and definitely affect draft position for both teams, which in turn affects all teams.

The truth is that what happened on Monday night will go down as one of the most inaccurate calls, not just in football, but in all of sports. And right now, as a fellow football fan, you can only hope, wish and desire that logic overrides all. The problem is that history says that it does not happen the majority of the time. What a mess!

And if a picture is worth a thousand words, then here's a few thou that covers the entire fiasco in one shot

[mudmanic2011]

Even though the RAVENS(my team) beat the hated Pats on Sunday,I for one am furious at the NFL for not reaching SOME kind of agreement,so as to get these amateur assholes off the field and let them go ref some little league games!Don't these @#!$ pricks make enough money already...look at the state of the union(LOL) for crying out loud;there are millions of people who would jump thru fire to get one-eighth of their salary.I could go on and on...!

[Lomax]

There's also the fact that Saints Head Coach Sean Payton was suspended for a full year for partaking in a player bounty scandal.

What?? Oh joy. Er, what is a player bounty scandal - some sort of under-the-counter payments, I presume?

Please bear in mind, by the way, that I'm three thousand miles away and my newspaper covers the NFL about as well as the Wall Street Journal covers cricket. But I've spent the last hour or so trawling a few sites and it seems plain that somebody needs to knock a few heads together with extreme prejudice.