NFL Referee Woes Continue

by | Dec 12, 2013 | 2013 season, Zebras Are Human Too

In week 14 of the NFL season, just 15 months after replacement officials made the call that many Packers fans will undoubtedly claim is the biggest injustice in the history of the league, several NFL games had questionable calls by the full-time referees — questionable enough that even Peter King called several to attention in his weekly Monday Morning Quarterback column.

I wasn’t able to watch the entire Vikings/Ravens game on Sunday, but there were two more calls in that game that I saw (and apparently one more that I didn’t) that King could have added to the list — an extremely questionable pass interference call on Chad Greenway late in the game, a chop block call against Joe Berger and the non-reversal of a Toby Gerhart “fumble” that was no more a fumble than I am a Chippendale model.

The Ravens scored a touchdown after the fumble, and scored the game-winning touchdown after the pass interference call.

The calls were bad enough that the league took the rare step of actually calling Vikings head coach Leslie Frazier to discuss the situation — likely an empty gesture for a guy who is probably on his way out after a rough season. (more…)

After Objective Review…the Seahawks/Packers Call Stands

by | Sep 25, 2012 | 2012 season, Business of Football, Zebras Are Human Too

I watched last nights game and followed along on Twitter with much amusement. There’s seriously nothing funnier in the sports community than watching Twitter blow up after a questionable call. Unfortunately, less than twelve hours later, and it feels to me like very few people have really thought this through rationally or objectively, and instead are just insisting that we need to get these refs out of our sacred game, so we can get back to…yelling at the regular refs for blowing calls.

Here are some of my (somewhat disorganized) thoughts on the current situation with the referees:

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