Blowing calls, games, and hopes sums up the replacement officials in the National Football League (NFL). Not only are they ruining games for fans and players, they’re also putting the players in a colossal amount of danger, by not calling proper penalties. The replacement officials have now officiated three weeks of professional football horrifically.
The most recent terribly officiated game was the Green-Bay Packers game vs. the Seattle Seahawks. The controversial call that had all of America yelling and throwing their beverages at their television was the call that gave the Seahawks a touchdown and win. This will forever be remembered as the worst Monday Night call in history.
The play involved a Hail Mary pass to the end zone where a Packer defender (Melvin Delanie “M.D.” Jennings) and Seahawk receiver (Golden Tate) both seemed to come down with the ball. One referee called a touchdown and the other referee, that seemed to have a better view, called a touchback which meant that Jennings had intercepted the ball.
One rule clearly states a 50/50 ball always goes to the receiver, so the referee that called a touchdown seemed to be accurate. Another rule states that every touchdown will be reviewed, so the referees went under the hood and took a second look at the play. At this point it was clear to everyone viewing the game that Jennings clearly came down with the ball and had two feet in bounds.
The referee came back onto the field saying that there was not enough evidence to overturn the touchdown. Even though everyone in America could tell that Jennings intercepted the ball clearly and legally. The replay also showed another blown call where there was clear pass interference in front of the replacement official which means a receiver illegally pushed a defender.
That’s just been one of the thousands of bad calls the referees have officiated over three sad weeks of football, but I am happy to tell you that the football gods have answered our prayers and the referee lockout is OVER. If you ask me what many people are calling the “touchception” pushed the NFL to end negations with the referees. Although I bet the other two weeks also had something to do with it.
According to ESPN the NFL has agreed to the increase the officials’s salary from an average of $149,000 a year in 2011 to $173,000 in 2013, rising to $205,000 by 2019. Fans were so excited to see the old officials back in action last Thursday that fans at the games gave them a standing ovation. Now we can finally enjoy a proper officiated NFL game, although fans and players will forever blame the referees when the game doesn’t go their way. But now we can say that the game was blown properly, and not by some pee wee football referee.
