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:

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

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?

Re: NFL Officiating
 

Sucks!!!!!!!!!![size="7"][b][/b][/size]

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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.

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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.

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[quote=MTK;1130801]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.[/quote]

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...

Re: NFL Officiating
 

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.

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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.

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I think the [B][U]Owners[/U][/B], 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).

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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.

Re: NFL Officiating
 

[quote=CRedskinsRule;1130821]I agree with most everything said here. [B]When they were negotiating, I heard a bunch of arguments against full time officials.[/B] 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.[/quote]

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.

Re: NFL Officiating
 

Beginning in 2013, the NFL will have the option of hiring a to-be-determined number of full-time officials to work year-round, including on the field. The NFL will have the option to hire additional officials for training and development and assign them to work NFL games.

[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_NFL_referee_lockout[/url]

so has the NFl hired any year round refs to work on rules, rule interpretation and player safety?

a google only brings up headlines of "nfl hires first full-time female referee". Not sure if that means year round or not ...

[url]http://www.footballzebras.com/[/url]

^^^ kinda interesting site. i know there is a MLB site where they have ump recaps of games and all the commentators are like high school umps and they talk and argue about refs like fans talk and argue about the actual teams/games. pretty damn funny. taken very seriously.

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The replay on every play is just so quick and so many angles, and the officials cant use it. We just see the bad calls more then ever before.

Re: NFL Officiating
 

Ive noticed too (and I forget which network) when they bring in that ref consultant Mike Carey? that turd is always freaking wrong. I laugh and just want to yell Redskin in his face....[url=http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/11381298/mike-carey-asked-washington-redskins-games-due-nickname]Mike Carey asked off Washington Redskins games due to nickname[/url]

eff that turd


[url=http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/11/mike-carey-cbs-always-wrong-officiating-expert-why-is]Why is Mike Carey so horribly bad at analyzing replay challenges on CBS? | For The Win[/url]

lol found something about him...nice

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[quote=Ruhskins;1130824]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.[/quote]
From - [url=http://www.thenation.com/article/why-are-nfl-refs-locked-out-its-all-game/]Why Are the NFL Refs Locked Out? It’s All in the Game | The Nation[/url]

{This could be a completely off-base representation, it's purely google knowledge with no fact checking or compare contrast research done, but it does ring true to me.}
[quote]Look at the demands being made of the referees: NFL owners want them to stop being part-time labor and instead work full-time for the league. Sounds great, except they want the refs to eliminate their other sources of income while taking a 16 percent cut in salary. They also want to eliminate their pensions and replace them with 401k plans tied to the stock market. Put simply, the owners line is less pay, less benefits, and if you don’t like it we’re locking the doors.[/quote]

Re: NFL Officiating
 

The replacement officials were about the same. Maybe a little better. I think the "regular" officials would have made the same call in the GB SEA game, and technically it was the right call.

The NFL is basically a money printing machine. HIRE FULL TIME OFFICIALS. Have them train in the offseason and during the week. Watching film and participating in pro and college practices.

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[quote=Evilgrin;1130826]The replay on every play is just so quick and so many angles, and the officials cant use it. We just see the bad calls more then ever before.[/quote]Yeah, seems like for over a decade we viewers must get better looks at replays than the officials do. Why can't the league have someone just watch the TV broadcast and let the officials know what we see?

Re: NFL Officiating
 

I agree...officiating does seem worse & worse every year. This is the worst i can recall across the board. Just about every game seems to have some type of blown call.

My pet peeve is that even though I've played and watched football at every level my entire life (many years now), as of this year....I don't even know what a catch looks like in the NFL anymore...what a crock.

And why is there even a damn Tuck rule? a fumble is a fumble.

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I've truley never seen a worse year for the refs.... no matter how you slice it. Every game it seems they are costing teams points and sometimes worse.

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The rules are too byzantine and vast for even the best officials to keep track on every play.

I'm surely in the minority in that I strongly believe replay has made the situation worse and as tool meant to benefit the game, fails miserably. If it were my decision at this point I'd get rid of replay. I really think it makes things worse and only has marginally improved the amount of calls that are "correct"

Chiefly, it only highlights and creates unrealistic expectations of perfection. If situations were allowed to be simply called on the field and left to stand surely some would be wrong but everyone could just move on in most cases because often the calls are usually of minor importance overall. Instead now every close play gets replayed and replayed and is turned into a huge deal. When replay was reenacted it was supposed to fix the big game changing issues. Now it is used to officiate everything basically. We get madder over missed calls because we want everything to be perfect since we have our false god replay. It can't be perfect. We shouldn't support a system that aims to create the fairy tale land of perfection and allows us to enjoy the games less because we can't ever get to that mythical perfection.

Replay also creates the situation with the catch issue. Now we watch all the replays and parse out each millisecond. When something goes wrong then the rules committee adds some more explanation to account for some random and rare situation that they didn't think of before. We can't possibly legislate every possible situation involving a catch. Just have a objective basic rule and let officials call it. Catches are like porn...you know one when you see it.

Replay also has gotten into the heads of a lot of officials. They make calls knowing that replay will clean up the mess. It makes them susceptible to a loss of focus and creates a tendency to always call plays in a way as to allow for replay to save their ass. They should calls plays to get them right instead.

Mostly, replay is simply substituting one form of human error for another.

Re: NFL Officiating
 

[quote=FRPLG;1130876]The rules are too byzantine and vast for even the best officials to keep track on every play.

I'm surely in the minority in that I strongly believe replay has made the situation worse and as tool meant to benefit the game, fails miserably. If it were my decision at this point I'd get rid of replay. I really think it makes things worse and only has marginally improved the amount of calls that are "correct"

Chiefly, it only highlights and creates unrealistic expectations of perfection. If situations were allowed to be simply called on the field and left to stand surely some would be wrong but everyone could just move on in most cases because often the calls are usually of minor importance overall. Instead now every close play gets replayed and replayed and is turned into a huge deal. When replay was reenacted it was supposed to fix the big game changing issues. Now it is used to officiate everything basically. We get madder over missed calls because we want everything to be perfect since we have our false god replay. It can't be perfect. We shouldn't support a system that aims to create the fairy tale land of perfection and allows us to enjoy the games less because we can't ever get to that mythical perfection.

Replay also creates the situation with the catch issue. Now we watch all the replays and parse out each millisecond. When something goes wrong then the rules committee adds some more explanation to account for some random and rare situation that they didn't think of before. We can't possibly legislate every possible situation involving a catch. Just have a objective basic rule and let officials call it. Catches are like porn...you know one when you see it.

Replay also has gotten into the heads of a lot of officials. They make calls knowing that replay will clean up the mess. It makes them susceptible to a loss of focus and creates a tendency to always call plays in a way as to allow for replay to save their ass. They should calls plays to get them right instead.

Mostly, replay is simply substituting one form of human error for another.[/quote]
I don't disagree with most of what you've said, but I go the other way on it. I think they ought to let the onfield ref's basically handle the game management part, moving the chains, basic time management and on field supervision, but move the penalty portion into the hands of the replay booth. Put body cams on the ref's so that the replay booth is seeing both the overhead and on field views, and buzz the head ref when penalties/errors occur. You take the minutiae of the technicalities away from the on field guys, and let plays develop at speed.

Take a catch for example, let the play move as the most obvious view, so if it looks like a catch move the chains etc, but just like the all scoring plays and turnovers must be reviewed rule, the ball gets put in play after the ok from the eye in the sky. That also gets rid of the hurry up so the other team can't challenge system.

I think you clean up the rules the onfield ref's are responsible for, and move the minutiae to the replay booth. If they don't see it within a reasonable timeframe play simply continues.

Re: NFL Officiating
 

I'd be open to other ideas like that too. I was a believer in replay but have slowly just realized "wait am I happier with how things are now versus before?" The answer is no. I think I, and most fans, am more dissatisfied with rules and officiating than before replay by a lot. Officiating hasn't gotten worse it has gotten harder and way more scrutinized.

Re: NFL Officiating
 

Can someone give a clear definition of when hooking a pass rusher around the neck is and isn't a hold? It seems like the officials aren't even sure as there are so many times it never gets called but then other times it randomly gets called. I saw it happen to Kerrigan today with no call then turn my head 20 degrees to the left to see a Bills player get flagged for virtually doing the same thing that was bring done to Kerrigan.

Re: NFL Officiating
 

Just seems to me the better the team the more fans complain about the refes.

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[quote=Giantone;1132705]Just seems to me the better the team the more fans complain about the refes.[/quote]

Every team's fans are complaining about the Refs. The Ravens lost a game they actually won because the refs got an obvious call wrong. Several games have had wrong calls severely impact the games. The refs lost several seconds in a game earlier in the season.

Re: NFL Officiating
 

Bills have a reason to complain becuase that was the worst no call of the season on the last drive of the game...the pick play

Re: NFL Officiating
 

[quote=NoCalHail;1132646]Can someone give a clear definition of when hooking a pass rusher around the neck is and isn't a hold? It seems like the officials aren't even sure as there are so many times it never gets called but then other times it randomly gets called. I saw it happen to Kerrigan today with no call then turn my head 20 degrees to the left to see a Bills player get flagged for virtually doing the same thing that was bring done to Kerrigan.[/quote]

This. I never understand why it doesn't get called consistently.

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I wish the NFL handled replay the way MLB does. They take it out of the hands of the officials on the field of play and let the people back in the studio watch it without all the adrenaline going and pressure to hurry up due to fans booing etc etc etc.....sometimes also it feels like the officials on the field are trying their hardest to uphold calls simply because they want to be justified in their initial call.

The list is growing rapidly of times when the former head of officiating members on the Fox broadcast will give the opposite opinion of what we see on the field.

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We need an eye in the sky to be able to overrule obviously awful calls. On the spot. Period.

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Otherwise i cannot.... cannot... comment on the refs..m way to much hate

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BTW... i guess gronk is allowed to push off on every play he's one on one that isnt a slant ? .... yea thats fuckin retarded.

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The officiating is no worse, it is evolving rules and all the subjective calls that make the officiating what it is. The new personal foul rules are very difficult to get right when you have to decide flag or no flag once at full speed. To me personal foul calls should be reviewed along with any pass interference of 15 yards or more.

To me the best example of how much harder to officiate the game is what offensive lineman are allowed to do. All of us 50+ crowd remember when a blocker could not grab or extend his hands away from his body holding and illegal use of hands were black and white. Now you can grab, yank, tug and push a guy while blocking him as long as you don't over do it. There is the 1980 version of holding on every play. 35 years ago you didn't have a lot of these gray areas now there are hoards of them.

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Also, has there been some kind of rule change about what a WR can/can't do when he is jammed at the line on say a screen pass and is trying to block for it? I have seen more Offensive PI calls on WRs who seem like they are merely engaged with a defender and trying to block.

It's as if the NFL is only going to allow the Tom Brady and Peyton Manning utilize the pick plays and anyone else who does it will get flagged. My eyes may be playing tricks on me but it seems like every time the Pats run that kind of play they have guys blocking downfield before the ball is caught and it is perfectly ok.