NFL Officiating: Zebras gone wild

Devizier

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The NFL has made so many rule changes over the years to gin up portions of the game for entertainment value (i.e. passing) that we have lost the meaning of "fair play" in the NFL rules context. What I mean by this is that we no longer refer to a common standard of "catch" or "fumble"; we instead have to collectively navigate rules which we might perceive to be stupid and ridiculous but we still have to be like "well that's the way the rule is written".
The big one is replay, which was introduced as a result of a Shawn Jefferson sideline catch during a Patriots-Bills game in 1998.

That got Ralph Wilson to back down from his virulent anti-replay stance and the rest is history. I thought Wilson was crazy for a while, but I’ve come around to his old way of thinking.
 

Shelterdog

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I think your conclusion that the refs saw all kinds of penalties in the secondary and decided not to call them until they did at the end is nonsense.

I don't think there was a lot of holding and PI to begin with, but yeah, they didn't see everything.
I think they had a light tough on calling PI--probably deliberately, they generally do in playoffs-light touch or not yanking a guy's jersey as much as was done on that play is just going to draw a flag every time.
 

BaseballJones

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I think your conclusion that the refs saw all kinds of penalties in the secondary and decided not to call them until they did at the end is nonsense.

I don't think there was a lot of holding and PI to begin with, but yeah, they didn't see everything.
I don't really understand. When the Pats played the Eagles in the SB a few years ago, they absolutely let all kinds of offensive holding go - didn't call a single offensive holding call all game long even though there was TONS of holding (which is one reason why the teams threw for crazy yards that day). It's totally possible that the refs decided beforehand to "let the players play" and call the game loosely instead of being really tight on calls. This wouldn't be remotely surprising. It took me just a few seconds to think of a couple of pretty egregious defensive penalties that they didn't call. Hard to believe there weren't more, which would make me ask why weren't ANY of them called? Again, either (a) the refs were incompetent and couldn't identify ANY defensive holding/DPI penalties even though they happened all over, or (b) they decided to let more go than usual over the course of the game.

Anyway, whatever, it doesn't really matter to me. I don't have a rooting interest in either team. You might be right in that it was just incompetence.
 

Strike4

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I suppose rule changes don't help, but the real change has been the ubiquity of high def, slow motion instant replay. We used to know what a catch was because we didn't have 14 different angles showing that the ball moved a smidge when the receiver hit the ground. Now we can never be sure until the next play starts.
And replay also allows for things like the Clement review in 2018 where people become so jaded and confused with replay rules that the NFL is able to do just what @Van Everyman mentions above: interfere with the officiating at will when they see fit.
 

CoffeeNerdness

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Don't have time to go through the whole game, but this is the one I was referring to. 2nd quarter, KC facing 3rd and 8, down 14-7. Pass over the middle to JuJu is incomplete. He screams for a flag. If you have the video you can see how blatant a hold it was. But here's the screenshot. (I don't know how to paste the clip).

View attachment 61172

Even Olsen was commenting how the refs missed that one.

Also note that it was Bradberry - the same one who committed the penalty at the end. If he was getting away with this during the game, obviously it would make sense that he would play it the same way at the end, having been given no reason to think that the refs would call it. This one above was WAY worse than the one at the end, by the way.

Then there was this one at the end of the first half, on the deep ball to Smith down the right sideline. He hauled it in, but that's when the refs delayed the snap for some reason (I don't recall why) and KC ended up challenging the catch and it was overturned.

View attachment 61173

Bunch of comments in the game thread, and the video is pretty conclusive, but yeah, Sneed totally interfered with Smith on this play - got there and grabbed Smith's arms before the ball got there. That Smith caught it was pretty amazing actually, though it got overturned.

Anyway, those are two examples of physical play by DBs that didn't get called. Both were significantly worse than what happened at the end when they DID throw a flag.
Do you really want an NFL where that second play is PI? No way that's flag worthy, IMO. The Shuster play was a clear miss.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yCSzZ5B1tI&t=16s
 

BaseballJones

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Do you really want an NFL where that second play is PI? No way that's flag worthy, IMO. The Shuster play was a clear miss.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yCSzZ5B1tI&t=16s
No I want things to be more loosely called.

Which is why the last penalty that effectively ended the game wasn’t at all in the realm of what I would prefer. Especially since they let more egregious stuff go all game long.

But ok I’m sorry… this is my last post on the subject.
 

uncannymanny

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Was that a SB where Gronk got absolutely mobbed up the middle near the goal line and nothing was called?
 

luckiestman

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I think they had a light tough on calling PI--probably deliberately, they generally do in playoffs-light touch or not yanking a guy's jersey as much as was done on that play is just going to draw a flag every time.
Idk, man. There were 66 points scored by offense. That doesn’t lead me to believe a lot of PI calls were being missed. On the other hand, Sauce is regularly way handsier than the DB that got flagged so I didn’t love the call.
 

Marciano490

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Idk, man. There were 66 points scored by offense. That doesn’t lead me to believe a lot of PI calls were being missed. On the other hand, Sauce is regularly way handsier than the DB that got flagged so I didn’t love the call.
I hope Breece is healthy next year so we get to see how Sauce would be officiated in a Super Bowl.
 

Seels

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Something I don't see mentioned elsewhere:

Forget whether the actual call was justified or not. But the reality is that the professional sports leagues have made the decision to get in bed with gambling and gambling advertisers. I can't blame any fan for questioning it when commercial breaks all night are for fan duel etc. I don't think it's reasonable to continue to give these leagues the benefit of the doubt.

Also - despite the call being bad on its own merits - that happens -- but why is there not a backup check for it? How are the powers that be not seeing reaction to that live and reversing it?

Then again - the Eagles won SB52 in large part from inconsistent officiating. So w/e.
 

soxhop411

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So. This GB/KC game may have been the breaking point if my timeline was any indication. A marquee game in which the horrific officiating was front and center during the closing minutes of the 4th quarter.

Universal disgust at the current state of nfl officiating and with some “2012 replacement refs” jokes thrown in.

I wonder what it will take for the NFL to go to full time officials if this type of shit continues. Since the pre super bowl press conference with the commissioner will yet again be about officiating.
 

Euclis20

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So. This GB/KC game may have been the breaking point if my timeline was any indication. A marquee game in which the horrific officiating was front and center during the closing minutes of the 4th quarter.

Universal disgust at the current state of nfl officiating and with some “2012 replacement refs” jokes thrown in.

I wonder what it will take for the NFL to go to full time officials if this type of shit continues. Since the pre super bowl press conference with the commissioner will yet again be about officiating.
Not only were the calls objectively terrible, we had the referee on the broadcast (Terry McAuliffe) openly disagree with at least two of the calls on the air. I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen former referees call out bad calls live on the air, hearing it twice in the less than a minute of game time is unheard of. That was embarrassing.
 

luckiestman

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I don’t think many people watched Jets/Falcons so this won’t get that noticed; the reffing in that game was out of control. It was so bad. There are normally bad calls in every game every week but this looked like pure incompetence.
 

sodenj5

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So. This GB/KC game may have been the breaking point if my timeline was any indication. A marquee game in which the horrific officiating was front and center during the closing minutes of the 4th quarter.

Universal disgust at the current state of nfl officiating and with some “2012 replacement refs” jokes thrown in.

I wonder what it will take for the NFL to go to full time officials if this type of shit continues. Since the pre super bowl press conference with the commissioner will yet again be about officiating.
Brother, we saw a literal mugging cost late-career Drew Brees a trip to the Super Bowl, and nothing has changed.

The Mahomes call is probably the most infuriating because he and Josh Allen weaponize the sideline in a way that few other players do, essentially daring defenders to hit them.

That play is literally a text book example of what a defender SHOULD be doing. Hit him with both of his feet still in bounds, leading with his shoulder, hit him in the designated target area, and stopping him short of a first down.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

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The article says there should have been a ten second run off on the Pacheco penalty. I wondered about that. There were actually two questions.

First, after the penalty, they called it first and 10. Not first and 25. As called on the field, it was not a dead ball foul. It occurred during the play. I guess the fact that the play should have been over makes it dead ball. That’s weird. Pacheco didn’t know it was a dead ball.

Second, is a ten second run off. The article says it was a run off because it was a penalty. But was it a penalty by the offense? It was post possession, as called on the field. If you are going to say it was first and 10, because it was a dead ball foul and you have to be consistent, then shouldn’t you do the same for ten second run off? Also, because replay stopped a running clock, it should have been a ten second run off for that reason. Yes, a penalty stops the clock, but if we reconstruct the play to have the runner down, then it would have been a penalty to stop a running clock.
 

Justthetippett

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McAulay gonna get another dressing down by the NFL I bet
If this actually happens then why have these guys on the broadcast? We can’t have illusions of every call being correct, but four critical missed calls in the final minute of a close game is egregious and should be pointed out. If the NFL actually wants to get calls right (or their gaming partners do) they can't be so afraid of every criticism.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

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I think the only answer on the Mahomes call is to make those kind of calls reviewable. Refs are going to miss bang bang plays. There is nothing you can do about it. Full time is maybe better, but only incrementally so. High def is just exposing the limits on humans’ ability to judge very fast moving stuff in motion in real time. The idea that there is some better set of humans out there is probably a mistake. Review it or live with it.

PI is a mess. There is no answer. We tried making it reviewable. It stunk. There are 5 call-no call debates every game. Hope for the best I guess.
 

snowmanny

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I didn’t really care who won the game, but I still can’t get over what we saw last night. The Hail Mary, whatever; there is probably all types of PI on every Hail Mary, and I’ve seen Gronk mugged enough in the end zone to no longer care.

But the other stuff…..at first I thought they were in the bag for KC….then I thought they were just incompetent…..but then it looked as if they were just making things up for some sort of undefined narrative that turned into a mangle of make-up calls. For whatever reason it was pretty clear they weren’t calling the game straight by the rules, and they had to know that.
The Mahomes call, maybe they just fell for his usual crap. The stopping the clock on the forward progress and the blatant DPI were two really easy calls they should never get wrong so something was up. (I mean they were easy in those specific cases. Both DPI and forward progress calls can have a lot of gray area to them but I saw no gray areas on those).

If McAuley is the one chewed out by the NFL we have a bigger problem.
 
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Oil Can Dan

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I spent some time this morning reading up on how the NFL evaluates their referees, as I'm very tired of the inconsistency and bullshit calls. Here's a link from the NFL Operations website that may be of interest. All I'll say is that I think the centralized replay officials in NY need to have a larger role. Well, that, and I really wish there was more transparency around the NFL grades and reviews on a game-by-game basis.
 

Ralphwiggum

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I've been saying for years that if I were coaching against Mahomes I'd tell my defense to light him up when he does that sideline shit and take the penalty. I hate that he's taking advantage of the fact that defenses know they can't hit him on the sidelines. So, when someone finally did hit him AND it was a legal hit and it was still flagged, that's fucking infuriating. It'll only make defenses more reluctant to hit him on the sidelines allowing him to exploit the rule even more. I just hate that part of his game, and it makes me want to see him take more hits like last night when he does it.
 

soxhop411

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I spent some time this morning reading up on how the NFL evaluates their referees, as I'm very tired of the inconsistency and bullshit calls. Here's a link from the NFL Operations website that may be of interest. All I'll say is that I think the centralized replay officials in NY need to have a larger role. Well, that, and I really wish there was more transparency around the NFL grades and reviews on a game-by-game basis.
What sucks about is that with the NFL pretty much in bed with the Gambling industry, you would think they would want to get every call correct. BB has been wanting to make every call reviewable for as long as I can remember...



Can you imagine the shitshow that would happen if a game like yesterday happened in the Superbowl? I would love to hear the NFL explain that away and how officiating did not have an impact
 

Oil Can Dan

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What sucks about is that with the NFL pretty much in bed with the Gambling industry, you would think they would want to get every call correct. BB has been wanting to make every call reviewable for as long as I can remember...



Can you imagine the shitshow that would happen if a game like yesterday happened in the Superbowl? I would love to hear the NFL explain that away and how officiating did not have an impact
I mean, there was a controversial call that basically ended the Super Bowl last year. The holding call on Bradberry was, perhaps, technically correct but the game was not called that way all game and there's no way that call should have been made in that moment. There was a huge bomb to DeVonta Smith at the end of the 1st half that was way more egregious than that and it didn't get called. Furthermore the Chiefs were only in that game instead of the Bengals because of a (wait for it) controversial unnecessary roughness sideline call for hitting Mahomes.

The shitshow just happened and here we are glued to our screens again. They know this, and so they don't care.
 

ehaz

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Could they just add a booth official who has the ability to 'throw' flags or overturn certain calls like PI? Make it so they can't ever delay the game. You either throw the flag/reverse the on-field call before the next play or it's over. Teams still can't challenge those flags, but at least you can reverse obvious mistakes in real time.
 

johnmd20

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I mean, there was a controversial call that basically ended the Super Bowl last year. The holding call on Bradberry was, perhaps, technically correct but the game was not called that way all game and there's no way that call should have been made in that moment. There was a huge bomb to DeVonta Smith at the end of the 1st half that was way more egregious than that and it didn't get called. Furthermore the Chiefs were only in that game instead of the Bengals because of a (wait for it) controversial unnecessary roughness sideline call for hitting Mahomes.

The shitshow just happened and here we are glued to our screens again. They know this, and so they don't care.
And the year before, the Bengals got absolutely fucked against the Rams in the B. And against KC in the Championship game last year, too.

But this year, I have noticed the refs are blowing calls at a clip that is hard to keep track of. I've been going nuts in the game thread all year. It's just incompetence coupled with idiocy because it's not good or consistent. Everything is random. So you can't even rely on consistency, good or bad.
 

Oil Can Dan

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The only defense I can muster is a point made by Florio on his weekly Sirius radio show last week which was that new language is added to the NFL rule book every year but they never remove anything. So, refs have more and more language to digest and apply in real-time. I don't think that excuses the crap we see on a weekly basis but it is worth mentioning.

It'll never happen but again I just want transparency. I want to be able to see the grades these refs are getting per the link I posted above. Supposedly every single play is reviewed, graded and catalogued. Let's see that info! I am more than willing to accept that mistakes are and will be made, but I need to know that they are working to correct the mistakes going forward, and that they're willing to punish the refs that don't improve.
 
FWIW, I had started a thread about officiating issues more generally in the General Sports forum...

https://sonsofsamhorn.net/index.php?threads/has-refereeing-umpiring-gotten-significantly-worse-in-all-sports-recently.40913/

...which hasn't gotten much traction, perhaps because of its location.
McAulay gonna get another dressing down by the NFL I bet
McAulay has generally been the most outspoken ex-referee in a major network booth, hasn't he? I really appreciate his willingness to call a spade a spade on the air.

Sometimes I wonder if college football has it right - no coaches' challenges as such, with a far wider range of calls being open to review, and those reviews being instigated from the booth. Of course, college games are much longer on average than NFL games, and I'm certain the NFL wants to keep its games within a 3-hour window if at all possible. But of course, the real reason the NFL has no incentive to really change anything is that controversy generates interest. Fairness is secondary to revenue - we all know this.
 

CFB_Rules

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McAulay has generally been the most outspoken ex-referee in a major network booth, hasn't he? I really appreciate his willingness to call a spade a spade on the air.
He has, and he has gotten a lot of shit for it. When I say McAulay will take a dressing down from the NFL, it won't be direct. McAulay would tell them to pound sand, he had public disputes with the NFL and the NFL Officials Union back when he was still calling Super Bowls.

The NFL will call NBC, and they'll reign him in. They already forced him to delete his twitter account, which was @SNFRules
 

joe dokes

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I think the only answer on the Mahomes call is to make those kind of calls reviewable. Refs are going to miss bang bang plays. There is nothing you can do about it. Full time is maybe better, but only incrementally so. High def is just exposing the limits on humans’ ability to judge very fast moving stuff in motion in real time. The idea that there is some better set of humans out there is probably a mistake. Review it or live with it.
I agree with making the sideline hit call reviewable. It's not like PI, which has a million judgment-y parts. This is "was he in bounds" & where did the defender hit him." It's little different from whether the receiver got his feet down inbounds.
 

johnmd20

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McAulay should just be a company man and always say, no matter the call or situation, that the refs got it perfectly right every time. Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

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Could they just add a booth official who has the ability to 'throw' flags or overturn certain calls like PI? Make it so they can't ever delay the game. You either throw the flag/reverse the on-field call before the next play or it's over. Teams still can't challenge those flags, but at least you can reverse obvious mistakes in real time.
Feels like the highest degree of mistakes happen in the 2:00 minute drill, where time and timing matter. Everything comes with a downside. More reviews mean potentially giving a team an advantage, with clock or play clock stoppages. You already have this problem when you stop the clock for a play that would have kept the clock moving, and now if you stop the play clock you give someone advantage -- maybe you give the offense more time to substitute, or whatever. It seems like real-time reffing is just really challenged in the last two minutes when a team is out of time outs and the defense is trying to run out the clock. Everything is just too fast.

On the OOB call, I wonder if they could just simplify things. I'm so confused about the rule and it seems to get called inconsistently game to game -- was the player moving backwards, was forward progress stopped, etc. When I watch the games in real time, I have no idea what they are going to call until I see the ref make the signal. It's obviously very difficult to call. For 53 minutes of the game, it really doesn't matter. Even though the clock stops for most of the game, they wind it again very quickly. It's only in the last 2/last 5 that it really matters. I might just make it simpler. If you get out of bounds, before being tackled, the clock stops. If you deliberately go backwards to get out of bounds, so what. Spot where you went out of bounds. If you're down in bounds, clock runs. I think all these complications make it too hard to call.
 

soxhop411

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He has, and he has gotten a lot of shit for it. When I say McAulay will take a dressing down from the NFL, it won't be direct. McAulay would tell them to pound sand, he had public disputes with the NFL and the NFL Officials Union back when he was still calling Super Bowls.

The NFL will call NBC, and they'll reign him in. They already forced him to delete his twitter account, which was @SNFRules
So is the NFL pretty much admitting that they want them to be the equivalent of Bagdad Bob/State TV?

Everything is awesome and the NFL officials are never wrong? Despite the fact that someone's 98 year old grandmother could tell the officials fucked up a call sitting on her couch?
 

Justthetippett

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I agree with making the sideline hit call reviewable. It's not like PI, which has a million judgment-y parts. This is "was he in bounds" & where did the defender hit him." It's little different from whether the receiver got his feet down inbounds.
By reviewable do you mean challengeable by coaches? I think at that point we're back to BBs proposal to make everything challengeable and just limit those challenges to a set number. I get the sideline is a concrete thing and not subjective, but I'm not convinced that needs to be main criterion. In slo-mo even the subjective calls tend to be pretty clear.

Alternatively, the League could make a decision to let guys play and not nitpick every foul to death. Mahomes actually mentioned after the game that he preferred that approach and maybe he could take his own advice on those sideline plays.
 
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johnmd20

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By reviewable do you mean challengeable by coaches? I think at that point we're back to BBs proposal to make everything challengeable and just limit those challenges to a set number. I get the sideline is a concrete thing and not subjective, but I'm not convinced that needs to be main criterion. In slo-mo even the subjective calls tend to be pretty clear.

Alternatively, the League could make a decision to let guys play and not nitpick every foul to death. Mahomes actually mentioned after the game that he preferred that approach and maybe he could take his own advice on those sideline plays.
It's not even subjective. If it happens to Mahomes, it's a penalty, even if it is inbounds. If it happens to Herbert, it's not a penalty, even if it is out of bounds.
 

Oil Can Dan

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Hurts got drilled out of bounds yesterday - no flag.
Mahomes got drilled in bounds yesterday - flag.

The *perception* is that Mahomes gets these calls and others don't. Same thing used to happen with Brady. Is it real or just perception? I don't intend to be dishonest here, I really believe that Mahomes gets calls other QBs don't so I don't think it's just perception - I think it's really happening. I'm old enough to remember the Jordan Rules; is this just another version of that? If so, is that okay? Are we supposed to just deal with it?

The reality is that refs are human and so they will make mistakes, they may or may not be influenced by home crowds, one will look for one thing more than another does, etc etc. And maybe some of these refs just like coaches/staffs/teams more than others. I knew going in to the Eagles/Niners game yesterday that under Alex Kemp's crew, who was working the game, that the Niners had gone 4-1 with him with three of those being road games, while Nick Siriani's Eagles were 0-2 including the game vs Washington last year where a massive and super obvious facemask penalty against Goedart wasn't called, leading to a critical game-deciding turnover. Now the Eagles lost yesterday because SF kicked their ass, but it's not great to see a clear pass interference penalty go uncalled on SF while CMC is flopping around on the field trying to draw a penalty and Alex fucking Kemp is opening laughing about it and patting him on his helmet.

Perception, or reality?

At this point I'm all for the centralized office having much more control over the calls on the field. These on-field refs have proven to me that they can't get it done. Something needs to change.
 

Strike4

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You are never going to get to certainty once instant reply is implemented - that's the end result we've all discovered to various degrees in the different sports (although soccer seems to have got it right for the most part). More and more overlaying of instant reply won't work when it's clear that can just go on forever. Instead of having instant reply for penalties, just make them easier to enforce, like just have it be two-hand touch for QBs. The NFL has already decided that protected QBs is paramount so just do it already. Nobody said that the QB doesn't have to suffer from limitations in QB play in the tradeoff for safety.

For PI, maybe they look at making it a 10 yard penalty rather than spot foul and see if this helps limit the "I'll just throw it near the receiver and see if I can get PI call" thing. And make offensive PI more enforceable. Or something like that.

Holding is much harder.

The point is that instant reply is not going to get us there. Just take the judgement part out of it.
 

Oil Can Dan

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As soon as I see some safety tackle an otherwise open receiver 50 yards down the field because a 10 yard penalty is better than a 50 yard TD my head will explode. I don't think the problem is with the rule itself, it's the execution and consistent application of the rule that needs work. Let the guys on the field make their initial call, but have overlords in NY that can overrule them when they're clearly wrong.

KC game last night - they overrule the OOB hit on Mahomes, and they overrule on the non-PI call late. I don't know what those on-field refs were looking at but if it's obvious to you and me then it'll be obvious to the people in NY, too. Empower them.
 

snowmanny

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McAulay should just be a company man and always say, no matter the call or situation, that the refs got it perfectly right every time. Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?
The answer is to pull a Gene “The refs did a great job noticing that Mahomes had both feet in-bounds when the defender delivered a textbook legal hit. That’s why they picked up the flag and made it a no-call…..wait, what?”
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

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Hurts got drilled out of bounds yesterday - no flag.
Mahomes got drilled in bounds yesterday - flag.

The *perception* is that Mahomes gets these calls and others don't. Same thing used to happen with Brady. Is it real or just perception? I don't intend to be dishonest here, I really believe that Mahomes gets calls other QBs don't so I don't think it's just perception - I think it's really happening. I'm old enough to remember the Jordan Rules; is this just another version of that? If so, is that okay? Are we supposed to just deal with it?

The reality is that refs are human and so they will make mistakes, they may or may not be influenced by home crowds, one will look for one thing more than another does, etc etc. And maybe some of these refs just like coaches/staffs/teams more than others. I knew going in to the Eagles/Niners game yesterday that under Alex Kemp's crew, who was working the game, that the Niners had gone 4-1 with him with three of those being road games, while Nick Siriani's Eagles were 0-2 including the game vs Washington last year where a massive and super obvious facemask penalty against Goedart wasn't called, leading to a critical game-deciding turnover. Now the Eagles lost yesterday because SF kicked their ass, but it's not great to see a clear pass interference penalty go uncalled on SF while CMC is flopping around on the field trying to draw a penalty and Alex fucking Kemp is opening laughing about it and patting him on his helmet.

Perception, or reality?

At this point I'm all for the centralized office having much more control over the calls on the field. These on-field refs have proven to me that they can't get it done. Something needs to change.
Yeah, I don't believe for a second that refs are thinking, "I'm going to benefit team X." I know we think that, and fans love to say that, but the one thing I truly believe is that they don't give a shit who wins. But you're right that there are all sorts of things that, I imagine, impact how refs judge bang bang plays. I don't think that refs are oblivious to the fact that Mahomes has a supernatural ability to maximize yardage along the sideline while avoiding contact. He's crazy good at it. So, just like sometimes I think an ump will consider that some batters have a great eye, I think that when some QBs get lit up on the sideline and it happened really fast, they make the expected call. With Josh Allen, I think you would be much more inclined to think he intended to eek out the extra yard without going out of bounds, because he seems at times to be contact seeking, not contact avoiding. Refs surely know who the players are and what their tendencies are, and I'm sure that matters with really close calls.

I don't blame the refs. I think there are discussions to be had about how to make them better at their jobs and how to evaluate them, and we always need to be thinking about positioning and mechanics, and avoiding letting hierarchy or conservatism stop innovation. But by and large I think the problem is that it's just really really tough to officiate these things perfectly in real time. And "solutions" create unintended consequences.

The funny part is that I think we all actually understand this. We scream about bad calls as neutrals. We minimize them when they help our team. We think it's the worst thing in the world when they screw us. But, really, in the end we all actually understand they are part of the game and none of us is going to stop watching because of it. From the NFL's perspective, they know that everything is so tribal that in the end, they are not really getting hurt by it. Nobody is going to get their bets back from draftkings. Nobody is going to turn in their season tickets. We're all going to watch tonight, and, in fact, the NFL has figure out that the best thing in the world is to have everyone talking about you, even if it's a nominally negative thing. Catch/no catch with Calvin Johnson was one of the best things that ever happened to the NFL, and they learned from it. Everyone watched the next game, and people talked about it for a month. We fucking love "going to the ground" bullshit and "what is uncatchable." In fact, we can't get enough of it, and the NFL knows this. We're all going to watch tonight, and they are going to screw up a spot very badly, or pick up an illegal downfield flag, or whatever, and we'll be back here tomorrow to be pissed about it. Until Thursday.
 

johnmd20

mad dog
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 30, 2003
61,996
New York City
The funny part is that I think we all actually understand this. We scream about bad calls as neutrals. We minimize them when they help our team. We think it's the worst thing in the world when they screw us. But, really, in the end we all actually understand they are part of the game and none of us is going to stop watching because of it. From the NFL's perspective, they know that everything is so tribal that in the end, they are not really getting hurt by it. Nobody is going to get their bets back from draftkings. Nobody is going to turn in their season tickets. We're all going to watch tonight, and, in fact, the NFL has figure out that the best thing in the world is to have everyone talking about you, even if it's a nominally negative thing. Catch/no catch with Calvin Johnson was one of the best things that ever happened to the NFL, and they learned from it. Everyone watched the next game, and people talked about it for a month. We fucking love "going to the ground" bullshit and "what is uncatchable." In fact, we can't get enough of it, and the NFL knows this. We're all going to watch tonight, and they are going to screw up a spot very badly, or pick up an illegal downfield flag, or whatever, and we'll be back here tomorrow to be pissed about it. Until Thursday.
The NFL might like that they are being talked about because any press is good press but the rest of this is not true.

I don't know a single fan of any team who prefers crappy, inconsistent reffing. You are making a lot of generalizations but they aren't accurate. And I am quite sure nobody loves going to the ground and what is catchable. It is a meme about how ridiculous it is, in fact.

People will watch because the NFL owns the winter, owns Sunday, there isn't a lot of competition, people are in their homes, and most of the games are played during the day.(so even kids can watch) It's also a perfectly compelling TV product, visually and audially.

But to claim that people love "going to the ground" seems kind of absurd to me.
 

Strike4

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 19, 2005
3,895
Portland, Maine
As soon as I see some safety tackle an otherwise open receiver 50 yards down the field because a 10 yard penalty is better than a 50 yard TD my head will explode. I don't think the problem is with the rule itself, it's the execution and consistent application of the rule that needs work. Let the guys on the field make their initial call, but have overlords in NY that can overrule them when they're clearly wrong.

KC game last night - they overrule the OOB hit on Mahomes, and they overrule on the non-PI call late. I don't know what those on-field refs were looking at but if it's obvious to you and me then it'll be obvious to the people in NY, too. Empower them.
I'm sure your head also explodes at the inverse which is already happening with QB's getting questionable PI calls, it's just that we've accepted that the NFL wants to tilt the playing field towards QBs and passing!

But I agree with empowering the on-field refs and part of that is simplifying the rules they have to interpret. PI is particularly difficult because it's subjective call on top of subjective call. It's easier for refs in soccer since everything is just a foul, but incredibly hard in the NFL when you have conditional interpretation (i.e. if a pass is forward these set of rule apply, if not then these) and cascading restrictions (within 5 yards, open field, in contact).

There's also the issue in football where calls can have an enormous significance in a game's outcome - even a season's. Baseball is another game with really complex rules but you rarely see individual calls that have such weight as so many do in the NFL. It would be nice to limit the amount of time and energy devoted to interpretive decisions rather than yes/no ones like false starts, ineligible downfield, etc.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

Found no thrill on Blueberry Hill
SoSH Member
Sep 9, 2008
42,277
AZ
The NFL might like that they are being talked about because any press is good press but the rest of this is not true.

I don't know a single fan of any team who prefers crappy, inconsistent reffing. You are making a lot of generalizations but they aren't accurate. And I am quite sure nobody loves going to the ground and what is catchable. It is a meme about how ridiculous it is, in fact.

People will watch because the NFL owns the winter, owns Sunday, there isn't a lot of competition, people are in their homes, and most of the games are played during the day.(so even kids can watch) It's also a perfectly compelling TV product, visually and audially.

But to claim that people love "going to the ground" seems kind of absurd to me.
I'm not sure there's a guy on this board who is more critical of refs than you. I can't actually know how much you care. But you use all sort of pretty absolute adjectives. "Unacceptable," and stuff like that. So it seems to be important to you.

I'm also not sure there's a guy more active than you on game threads. It's not like I'm following you around, but I doubt you miss too many games. Probably up there with luckiest.

None of this is to say that you're wrong and that reffing can't get better, but I do think it is a small anecdote to prove my point that there's not much incentive to fix anything. They got a little queasy when a blown PI call fucked a championship, but they got through it. Officiating is bad, but engagement is very very high.

I'm not saying that the NFL and fans wouldn't prefer that it be better. I don't think they would deliberately fuck up officiating to generate buzz. (Though with these fuckers, I'm not 100 percent sure.) But they are fantastic at making chicken salad out of chicken shit, and they have done a great job at keeping officiating from being a problem that affects the bottom line, and in fact they have indeed found ways to turn officiating controversies into buzz. We're all talking about them and we're all still watching to see what they will fuck up next. And for every bad call, there's someone who is happy -- because they root for the other team, need a turnover for their fantasy wide receiver to have a chance, or took the under.

And, my main point got lost -- we live in a world where television definition is better than human perception. There may be things around that margins that could make it better, but by and large we are all going to need to learn to live with blown calls. Expanded replay may help, or it may make things worse, or it may be marginally better. Same with evaluation. Same with maybe clarifying rules to be more objective. But I think we've learned that sometimes you think you're taking two steps forward only to learn you took three steps back. We need to learn to live with bad calls, because they are going to keep happening. No matter what adjectives that we use for them. There's no magic in football to make it better. At least in baseball you know that robot umps would be better, but there's nothing that obvious in football. And my real point is this: We already have accepted that this is the way that is, if not consciously then subconsciously. It's not going to change unless there is some big technology breakthrough. Same with, by the way, concussions (just to take another example). It is what it is for the foreseeable future. Some of the hand-wringing is, unfortunately, theater.