NFL Officiating

Folks its been the worst year for officiating ever...Its really terrible out there.

Falls on the commissioner Goodell just as much as the NFL officials. Goodell been absolutely terrible is every facet of his job.

Looks like there is a little accountability going one which is great and impacts our game next Monday:

Pete Morelli’s crew yanked from Week 13 Monday night game | ProFootballTalk (http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/12/01/pete-morellis-crew-yanked-from-week-13-monday-night-game/)

This really affects the quality of play, speed of the game, etc. Goodell really needs to clean this crap up and I think it starts with simplifying some rules...I couldn't tell you what a catch is...

Thoughts, observations?

Sucks!!!!!!!!!!

Worst year ever? Kind of hard to substantiate that. Every year is pretty awful. I think it starts with the rules committee, can we clean up this what's a catch BS? I think they need to allow some calls to be reviewed too. Too many phantom holding/roughing calls.

I am not sure why the NFL doesn't go to a system more like MLB where when something is challenged they buzz it in to a replay room back in the studio where they have access to every single angle, frame by frame pausing etc etc etc....it is getting awfully annoying when we constantly see the officials on Fox chime in about how the call *should* go, and then the officials in the game basically come to the opposite conclusion.

Right now I think inconsistency is the single biggest issue. Allowing one team to play physical, while penalizing another for virtually playing the same way. It seems like this has been a problem whenever you deal teams who have a reputation for playing stiff defense, they are all of the sudden awarded the right to get away with more grabbing, holding, hitting and when their opponent tries to reciprocate they get flagged up and down the field.

Something that has kind of seemed to have gone away a lot is not throwing the flag for PI when the football is clearly uncatchable. I am seeing flags thrown when the ball is thrown 5 yards past a WR or 10 ft over their head and the contact was very minimal.

Worst year ever? Kind of hard to substantiate that. Every year is pretty awful. I think it starts with the rules committee, can we clean up this what's a catch BS? I think they need to allow some calls to be reviewed too. Too many phantom holding/roughing calls.

it seems like a major questionable call/non call/end of game play clock/game clock screw up every week. I never thought it was this bad before.

That game we played with the ladies man, head official "booger?" crew against Carolina was just insane...that crew throws a ton of penalties and had several questionable calls. As frustrating it already is of being a Skins fan...bad officiating makes it 10 times worse...

Yes, Boger's crew throws an alarmingly high number of flags compared to the other crews. There is a link out there.

They need to hire guys full time from August to Super Bowl. On the radio they said one guy was referring a high school basketball game saturday before the pats game last week. the argument that these guys have other jobs doesnt sway me. I dont need an attorney like Ed hochuli to also be a ref. I like Ed but he should choose what he wants to do. one or the other.

I never understood why the NFL took a "zero negotiation" stance with the refs during the CBA renewal period. Yes, the refs were asking for a little too much imo but you could have negotiated them down. I can only assume there was much more to it than I would know.

eventually the NFL will figure out a better process, i just dont understand why it is taking so long to adopt some common sense ideas that ppl have been floating out there for decades now.

there is also an article on espn about how this year there was a ton of turn over.

also - replay should be initiated in NY right away if any play looks iffy without stopping the clock or notifying teh refs etc. if NY needs more time or wants to overturn a play they should then be able to buzz the refs and go from there.

Part time employees trying to figure out rules made by the idiots on the rules committee. Simply put, its a recipe for disaster. When it comes to "sports" that have better refs, and you feel obligated to include the WWE as one of those, its become horrendous.

I think the Owners, and more specifically the competition committee needs to clean up a lot of these rules as it was said earlier.

I also don't understand why the NFL doesn't consider using technology in officiating. Why can't they have an official watching the game on a TV monitor?

Also, more calls need to be reviewed, especially on big penalties or game changing penalties (like the Culliver PF).

I agree with most everything said here. When they were negotiating, I heard a bunch of arguments against full time officials. None of them hold water to the crud that is put out every week across the league.

imo, they ought to have full time officials, and they ought to make sure they are physically capable of keeping up with the speed of the game (yes let Mike Shanahan run the referee conditioning tests!!!)

Then, they ought to employ virtual games in the off-season, running the critical plays of the last two years through VR headsets, purposely putting errors and bad judgement calls in, and grade the refs on the virtual games.

Otherwise, it seems like the conspiracy theories of the NFL wanting so and so to win or lose will continue forever, and the game will only get worse.

I agree with most everything said here. When they were negotiating, I heard a bunch of arguments against full time officials. None of them hold water to the crud that is put out every week across the league.

imo, they ought to have full time officials, and they ought to make sure they are physically capable of keeping up with the speed of the game (yes let Mike Shanahan run the referee conditioning tests!!!)

Then, they ought to employ virtual games in the off-season, running the critical plays of the last two years through VR headsets, purposely putting errors and bad judgement calls in, and grade the refs on the virtual games.

Otherwise, it seems like the conspiracy theories of the NFL wanting so and so to win or lose will continue forever, and the game will only get worse.

I thought I heard Andrew Brandt on the Ross Tucker podcast saying that the officials were against doing this, while the league actually wanted this. Given the issues in officiating, I can't see the NFL having an issue making this happening now.