Replacement Referees Have A Great Game
If you didn't watch Monday Night Football, you missed out an amazing game. Mostly because of serial missed or flubbed calls by the replacement referees. The last call probably should have been "interception by Green Bay Packers." Instead it was, "Game-winning touchdown by Seattle Seahawks." The entirety of Wisconsin is currently rioting, I hear.
The regular refs are locked out and the NFL owners are playing hardball and using replacement refs. I'll let Brit Hume explain:
Replacement refs doing the best they can. That's the problem. Sort of like President Obama.
Zing!
IowaHawk had the tweet of the night with this brilliant insight:
NFL replacement refs > US news media.
Ken Gardner made me laugh with this one:
Roger Goddell on that game ending play: "it was just a bump in the road." Okay, he didn't really say that.
And RB Pundit says he's found a common enemy:
BTW… if you’re upset with the NFL right now, thank collective bargaining.
Well, or monopoly power.
My condolences to Packer fans. To be honest, I've found these replacement games to be oddly entertaining. I know that's probably the wrong thing to say right now, but there's something so compelling about fiascos.
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Comments:
Oct '10
Re: Replacement Referees Have A Great Game
Great game. Go Seahawks!
Jun '10
Re: Replacement Referees Have A Great Game
Same thing all the labor disputes these days are about: pensions. The refs have a pension plan, the NFL wants to end it and move them to a 401(k) instead.
Jun '10
Re: Replacement Referees Have A Great Game
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.
To be honest, I've found these replacement games to be oddly entertaining. I know that's probably the wrong thing to say right now, but there's something so compelling about fiascos.
Same here. I tend to think it's a brilliant Machivellian strategy on the part of Roger Goddell and the NFL ownership: they play hardball to get what they want from the union, and they get everyone talking this game around the water cooler tomorrow.
The only way this hurts the owners is if fewer people watch or buy tickets. But if your product is entertainment, and everyone's talking about it, I bet more people will watch to see the next train wreck.
As the old saying goes, there's no such thing as bad publicity.
May '10
Re: Replacement Referees Have A Great Game
As an odd aside, Mitt Romney could probably sew up Wisconsin by coming out against replacement refs... But he had better do it before Obama does!
May '11
Re: Replacement Referees Have A Great Game
A fiasco can be entertaining, but when it's followed up by 10 minutes of officials looking at replay to determine the right call it becomes tedious and annoying. The NFL is already plagued by trying to cram as many commercial breaks into the game. When you mix all the replay challenges and injuries the game slows to a crawl. Witness last weeks Monday night game where the first quarter lasted over an hour.
Maybe i've developed adult A.D.D, but the games have become unwatchable.
Jul '12
Re: Replacement Referees Have A Great Game
Meh, I am looking forward to the audit to be done by the league that shows the "chaos" of the replacement refs is not really that much worse than the "real" refs when looked at objectively side-by-side.
If the "real" refs were all that grand we wouldn't have need of multiple challenges per game.
Dec '10
Re: Replacement Referees Have A Great Game
Most of the anger is directed at Goodell. At least that's what I'm getting from the handful of sports articles I read.
NFL Sunday Ticket. The Red Zone channel will make sure you never see a commercial.
Joseph Stanko
Same thing all the labor disputes these days are about: pensions. The refs have a pension plan, the NFL wants to end it and move them to a 401(k) instead. · 3 hours ago
My default position on labor vs. management is to be anti-labor, but in this case I can't really get a bead on where I stand. I just want it to be done with.
Aug '12
Re: Replacement Referees Have A Great Game
Supreme Court Ref John Roberts invents law to give Obama the win that can bankrupt the country...ho hum..."that's the way the cookie crumbles."
NFL stooge-refs (who look like fugitives from WWF) make "controversial" calls in games that ultimately means nothing... now that's something to get outraged over.
Oct '11
Re: Replacement Referees Have A Great Game
If Romney makes a statement before Obama the media will trash him for saying something "before all the facts are known," even if Obama later puts out a nearly identical statement.
Oct '11
Re: Replacement Referees Have A Great Game
Apparently the only way to really get a significant portion of the population outraged and engaged over an issue is to mess with the bread and circuses- GO SPORTSBALL!
But honestly yeah- so far it's been pretty entertaining- which is the entire point of a game right?
Edited on September 25, 2012 at 4:09pmApr '12
Re: Replacement Referees Have A Great Game
The call was pretty bad, but the real crime is that Aaron Rodgers has earned my fantasy team just 25 points over the last two weeks combined! How much can a person be expected to take?
Re: Replacement Referees Have A Great Game
I was playing my brother last night in my fantasy football league and he had Rodgers and I so worried I was going to lose. But because of Rodgers' horrible performance, I eked out a win. I'm undefeated, 3-0!
May '10
Re: Replacement Referees Have A Great Game
Trial by fire. The pivotal question is how much these replacement refs can improve by the year's end. How great is the learning curve? If they can become reliable before the season is done, then the old refs should be fired and replaced permanently.
Aug '12
Re: Replacement Referees Have A Great Game
Maybe i've developed adult A.D.D, but the games have become unwatchable. · 2 hours ago
Unwatchable, unless you record and fast forward between plays. Takes the game time down to only 150% of game clock time. I don't start to watch until halftime -- even then I will catch up with realtime before the game ends.
Re: Replacement Referees Have A Great Game
Best tweet came from packers lineman T.J. Lang: “Fine me and use the money to pay the regular refs.”
May '10
Re: Replacement Referees Have A Great Game
!
Sep '10
Re: Replacement Referees Have A Great Game
The Replay Officials are not replacements, and they upheld the touchdown call.
Apr '12
Re: Replacement Referees Have A Great Game
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.
I was playing my brother last night in my fantasy football league and he had Rodgers and I so worried I was going to lose. But because of Rodgers' horrible performance, I eked out a win. I'm undefeated, 3-0! · 1 hour ago
Heh, congratulations! The Packers have been pretty awful this year. That makes it a little harder for me to feel for them in this instance. Of course, bad calls still diminish the game, and do constitute an injustice in and of themselves, but if we take the long view and consider their general play, I think it's hard to argue that the Packers have been better than a 1-2 team thus far.
Sep '10
Re: Replacement Referees Have A Great Game
If you believe in conspiracies -- Funny how the typical NFL "darlings" are not in first place. Guess the replacements did not get a copy of The Jordan Rules.
Edited on September 25, 2012 at 5:57pmJun '10
Re: Replacement Referees Have A Great Game
Two points: