NFL Officiating

[HailGreen28]

Originally Posted by Evilgrin

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.

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?

[Bangee7]

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.

[Meks]

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.

[FRPLG]

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.

[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by FRPLG

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.

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.

[FRPLG]

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.

[NoCalHail]

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.

[Giantone]

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

[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by Giantone

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

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.

[Chico23231]

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

[FRPLG]

Originally Posted by NoCalHail

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.

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

[NoCalHail]

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.

[Meks]

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

[Meks]

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

[Meks]

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.