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Time for NFL Ref Reform?

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cincibuck

cincibuck

You kids stay off my lawn!
Just finished watching Tony Rome do about 15 minutes of tap dancing on the heads of the Dan Levy officiating team. sounds like a storm rising in the fan world. Is the NFL going to bring in full time officials? Is this the time the league, probably the best in professional sports at listening to the fan, really looks into ref reform? What would you recommend?
 
Full-time officials - way past time to have them. The money is there, the need is there.

I also beleive that insisting on full-time professional officials is only part of the solution. The pro game could learn a lot from its "incubator" at the college level in how to run the review process. For one thing, get a back-up crew in a booth upstairs whose only job is to review plays, like some conferences now do in college. Stop the stupidity of costing a coach a time-out for a challenge by placing the responsibility for making a challenge on the booth officials. In other words, get the red hankies out of the coaches pockets for good by making all plays reviewed in real time.

(Notably, LIVoyd wanted the contrary after the Sun Belt crew couldn't get reviews done smoothly, which caused him to burn TO's at the Alamo Bowl - though I take that to mean you need competent people in the booth. LIVoyd's solution of giving college coaches a red hanky challenge "just like the pros" is a symptomatic cure, but shoot consider the source.)
 
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First of all. Don't do an all-star team of officials for the Super Bowl. Put the best officiating team in the Super Bowl, that way you have guys that know each other's assignments, and they're calling the game like they've called games all year. If you want to reward individual officials, then send the "all-star" officials to the Pro Bowl.

As for the overall problem recently. Officiating has gotten worse, because the game is so much faster, and the amount of time that officials have to be doing high school, or college games hasn't. By the time an official has enough experience to qualify to be an NFL official he's only got a couple of years before his own reflexes and reaction time aren't fast enough to keep up with the speed of the game. A lot of these plays happen so fast, that the officials just aren't seeing what's happening. Then they have to ask for help from someone that wasn't in position to even make the call. Make the amount of time that they spend doing the lower level stuff shorter, and put them on a shorter leash once they get to the NFL level. That way you get the guys that can do the job into the upper levels faster, but they don't feel as comfortable, or get lazy, once they get there.

The Indianapolis game was the worst case for this year's playoffs, but didn't really have anything to do with a ref that was rusty from that not being his full-time job. The interception that wasn't, was simply the leader of the officiating crew not knowing what the rules were, or he was paid to conveniently forget them for a little while. Full time or not, they need to get some guys that know the rules, and can actually see what's going on. Another thing that may help would be for the NFL to implement a Big Ten style of replay system. The throwing of the flag is a ridiculous way to challenge a call. Maybe you leave the red flag in the coaches pocket, so they don't have to call timeouts to get a review, but making it the sole purpose for reviewing a call is the wrong way to go.
 
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tibor75 said:
I really doubt the game on the pro level is much faster now than the 70s or 80s. Lynn Swann, Bob Hayes, etc. were pretty damn fast.
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Yes, take the two fastest from then, and match them up against the two fastest now, and they're probably pretty even. Take the average of all the players then, and all of them now, then the difference is pretty big. Especially with big guys.
 
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IronBuckI said:
First of all. Don't do an all-star team of officials for the Super Bowl. Put the best officiating team in the Super Bowl, that way you have guys that know each other's assignments, and they're calling the game like they've called games all year. If you want to reward individual officials, then send the "all-star" officials to the Pro Bowl.
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Easily the best idea as a step towards fixing the problem. The crews need to consider themselves a team that will either do well and advance together or flounder and go home to watch the game.

Greenies at a much lower rate than before for you. :biggrin:
 
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They have what, 4 guys on the field...at least one up in the booth and enough camera angles to get a replay of whatever each QB has stuck in his teeth from that mornings breakfast...not to mention super duper, frame-by-frame slow motion to check each of those angles...and somehow they still manage to pull out some of the most insane calls I've ever seen.

I wrote to "The NFL" from the official web site about this even before the playoffs, so this is a real hot-button topic for me. I don't expect them (officials) to be perfect and get every miniscule detail and call right, but don't constantly put yourselves smack dab in the middle of the spotlight Sunday after Sunday. And for the love of Pete! at least make a half-way decent showing during the Playoffs and the Super Bowl. What a complete debacle (sp?).

I thought College Football (the Big Ten in particular, since that's what I watched the majority of the time) handled instant replay 1,000 times better than the NFL: make a call...if it looks like an error may have been made, a ref in the booth calls an officials t.o., then look at it and if there isn't absolute "indissputable evidence" (does the NFL know hat that means?) leave the call the same as called on the field and move on!

Were there questionable calls in college, even blown calls? Of course, and I expect no less from high school, college, pro, etc. I know it's a fast paced, high pressure job, but that's what the professional crews get paid lots of money for very limited amounts of work (compared to other jobs) to do. Get it right (which I believe they do most of the time), but more importantly to me...don't make yourselves the prominent story the day after the game, which happened way to often this year in my view.

Thanks for letting me rant.

:pissed:
 
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I don't see how making the refs "full time" solves anything. They already go through training camps and rules meetings, etc. Most of the moaning about officials is about their judgment calls, and a ref's personal judgment really isn't going to change based on being "full time". Do you think the back judge who threw the offensive PI flag on the Seattle TD would've had a different opinion had he been a "full time" ref? Besides, what are these refs going to do "full time"? Will the NFL bring in scrub players and run "practice" football games for refs to officiate and be critiqued? Most of the refs are really good at what they do...if anything, it's the system (replay review, etc.) that needs tweaking.
 
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IronBuckI said:
Yes, take the two fastest from then, and match them up against the two fastest now, and they're probably pretty even. Take the average of all the players then, and all of them now, then the difference is pretty big. Especially with big guys.
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I don't think today's 350 lb offensive linemen are faster than the 250 offensive linemen of yesteryear.
 
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Padraig said:
They have what, 4 guys on the field...at least one up in the booth and enough camera angles to get a replay of whatever each QB has stuck in his teeth from that mornings breakfast...not to mention super duper, frame-by-frame slow motion to check each of those angles...and somehow they still manage to pull out some of the most insane calls I've ever seen.
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You know, you would think this is the case. The ongoing debate about whether or not Ben crossed the planeproves otherwise though. Even with all the camera angles and frame by frame slow-mo replays, there are still a lot of calls that come down to the official's best judgement.

I agree that the officials for the Super Bowl should be awarded in teams. They work with each other all year, and you can't discount that cohesiveness. The Pro-Bowl is the best solution for the All-Star officials. Great Idea.
 
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You're right. There are going to be those calls that if you look at it a hundred times or by a hundred different people, there's the chance for making a legit case for either side 50/50, right down the middle.

So if you can't tell beyond a shadow of a doubt after looking at all the angles, then let the call stand as made on the field and back to the game...it drives me most nuts when calls like that get overturned after 3-5 minutes looking at the same replay 20 times, and then listening to it being discussed at the water cooler the next day, week, month.

What was the game where someone scored a TD to win, or maybe it was a non-TD to preserve the win for the other team (I forget...Lions, maybe?) and you could stare at the slow-mo the rest of your life and come no closer to telling me what the "correct" call was. Yet if I recall, the ref. overturned the call on the field "giving" a team a W based on his interpretation of the play..(was the ball slightly moving in the receiver's hands as one of his two dragging feet touched the white chalk of the end zone??? Drives me freaking nuts!)

Another game (I think a Monday Night Football, Pitts. vs. someone) Hines Ward dives for a long ball, clearly makes the catch and then gets up and runs the rest of the 30 yards for a TD. Replay shows that the diving DB's shoe lace may have touched Hines' leg as Ward got up. The announcers are watching every angle, super slow-mo and they declare TD...nothing to give "clear" visual evidence to overturn the called TD on the field, but appearantly the ref. saw enough in his mind to change the call.

Different subject, but while I'm venting: Dumbest rule I've ever heard

Again, I apologize because I forget the game it's from, but if a WR catches a ball near the sidelines he needs 2 feet down in bounds with possesion of the ball. This could be diving out of bounds as long as the WR at least drags his toes of both feet (we all know this). YET if a WR catches a ball going backwards out of bounds (i.e. a jumpball near the sideline), then he does not simply need to tap/drag his toes from both feet. He needs to get his heal in as well...One entire foot and the ball of the front of his second foot landing in bounds, but the heal of his second foot landing on the line is a non-catch...why? No idea.

I know this has nothing to do with refs and judgement calls and instant replay, but I LOVE Football: NFL, college, etc. and this year in particular...in the NFL in particular, it seemed to me that the referees did more to insert themselves into the spotlight in a negative way (is it ever a positive when the refs are the story of a game) and robbed me of quite a bit of the njoyment that I usually get from this game.

Again...just a really frustrating subject for me, especially considering the $$ generated by the NFL...please, please, please (owners, refs, etc.) do something to make this better because the situation as it is stinks IMO.
 
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buckeyeboy said:
FYI--the NFL said the Super Bowl was properly officiated.
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HAHHAAH that just made my morning..way to go NFL..

This has been a hot topic lately with me and my friends...Ever since bowl season, when we all witnessed some of the worst officiating in the history of organized sports..Some of the calls still stick out in my head (the Iowa vs Florida game comes to mind) like it was last night that it happened..

I really dont think a full time officiating crew will help..like Mililani said, they all go through the same training, so by sticking with a full time crew, i dont see many benefits of that...

What i do see helping out a ton, changing the stupid replay/review system, please and thank you!

Its not a coach's fault if a ref screws up a call, so why should he be the one to initiate a challenge? Like someone said in this thread...The NFL needs a crew that reviews EVERY play that happens, and they need to be the ones that initiate a challenge, not the coach's..

All i know is this...The level of officiating has gone downhill..Its not just in the NFL, or college, its everywhere...For those that dont watch basketball on a regular basis, watch a game..Count how many times someone travels and doesnt get called..Its gotten to the point to where the rulebook needs to be changed to say "its ok to take 3 steps"...IMO, the NBA has gone downhill the most with the officiating..
 
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