Fair Game: NFL's Replacement Refs

My first real insight into what it takes to officiate a sport came when I was in college.  I signed up to officiate flag football games and had to go through training that lasted 2 days before the season kicked off.  It was one of the most challenging experiences I’ve ever faced because there are so many subtleties and intricacies that the average viewer doesn’t even realize.  Referees and officials are undervalued for how much responsibility falls on their shoulders and how consistent they usually perform.

            That being said, I am NOT defending the replacement officials but rather making my case for appreciating the regular crews.  This NFL season has had a lot of negative headlines and scandals surround it dating back before the NFL Draft in April.  From Bounty Gate to lawsuits by former players over player safety and concussions, the NFL has stayed among the top headlines in the sports world for months.  Bounty Gate was still at the forefront when Week 1 kicked off with the officials lockout not even making front page news but instead being an afterthought.  The replacements were poised in as perfect a position to succeed as replacement officials ever could be.  The attention was off of them and they could just go out there and let their weeks of training from over the summer kick in.  They could show the league they could fill that role, give them leverage in their negotiations with the NFLRA, and let fans forget there was even an officials lockout.

            Fast forward three weeks later and the league has spent each of the last three weeks working on damage control to preserve their image.  It’s becoming a weekly tradition that every Monday or Tuesday the league issues AT LEAST one statement defending one replacement crew or another for a highly publicized mistake in a game.  Each week there’s the mentality that “it can’t get much worse than it was this weekend” and yet each weekend they find a way to lower the bar.  The league’s worst nightmare is coming true as they see their last bit of leverage against the Referee’s Union slipping through their fingers. 

The current apex (and I use that term loosely because I’m sure next week they’ll find a way to blow an even simpler call in even grander fashion) came on national television.  Monday Night Football on ESPN with millions watching a close battle between the toast of the NFC, the Green Bay Packers, and the surprising upstart Seattle Seahawks who thus far this season, just keep finding ways to compete and win.  With 8 seconds left in regulation and the Packers winning 12-6, rookie QB Russell Wilson heaves a hail mary up into the endzone and at that moment, you could feel everyone in the stadium as well as at the NFL League Offices collectively hold their breath.  And as Packers safety M.D. Jennings and Seahawks wide receiver Golden Tate came down with the ball, three weeks of debating and arguing about this experiment of replacement officials was meaningless.  With Jennings pulling the ball with both arms to his chest and Tate merely clinging loosely with one arm on the ball, 2 officials converged on the scene and in the epitome of this now failed experiment, one signaled for a touchback and the other a touchdown. 

Two officials, two different calls, and one commissioner back in New York shaking his head as he sees how his week is going to consist of trying to end an officials lockout while convincing fans that the integrity of the sport is his highest priority.  But he still had hope.  Hope that the officials would come together, use God’s gift to replacement refs (instant replay), and make the right call and save face for an otherwise farce of a primetime game.  Getting the call right would allow everyone to forget the 24 penalties called in the game, the 1 penalty on that play that WASN’T called when Tate body checked a Packers corner to the ground before his leap, and for at least 1 day, slow the criticism of Roger Goodell’s experiment.  Too bad for Roger that even after using replay, these replacements grasp of the NFL’s rules is so weak that they upheld their blunder.  It was a touchdown for the Seahawks, handing them a 14-12 victory.  The officials used instant replay to confirm that the Packers were just robbed of a victory, that fans should have no faith in the replacement officials, and that the league would be spending Tuesday issuing statements regarding this failed experiment. 

Let’s even forget the fact that it took another 10 minutes to kick the meaningless extra point because the officials didn’t realize it was required and focus on the consequences of their blown call and non-call.  The fallout is far reaching, from the League Offices on Park Ave in New York City to the strip in Las Vegas.  Minutes after the tragic ending of this game the social media world was overwhelmed with an outpouring of sentiments surrounding this game.  7 of the top 10 trends on twitter WORLDWIDE in some way involved the NFL or that specific game.  That has continued through the day Tuesday and more reports and statements issued haven’t helped put out this social media wildfire.  Economic and business analysts estimate that the blown call at the end of that game shifted $15 million in bets from one side to the other…and that’s just bets in Las Vegas.  If you take into account online bets and estimated off the books gambling and such, the conservative estimate is one replacement officiating crew shifted over $250 million in bets.

I’d like to see how Roger Goodell is going to spin this scandal.  All the defending the league has done for these officials is now moot in the court of public opinion.  These officials are now, more than ever, fair game.  The time for “they’ll improve given time” argument is now past.  The fans no longer want to hear how hard these officials are trying or how the league will continue to work to better the officiating.  The only way to improve the officiating is give the NFLRA whatever they want at this point in order to salvage what’s left of the league’s integrity.  There’s no debate to be had here on what the call should have been or how this experiment of replacement officials is panning out.  The only debate now is what this scandal is going to be called.  I’d put my money on Ref Gate (as long as my bet can’t be influenced by a NFL referee).