Officiating grades this season

HitDoctor · Post by **HitDoctor** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 11:45 pm

F.....from beginning to the end!!!

Hoss · Post by **Hoss** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 12:08 am

i'd give them a c- for the season.

tonight, b+
i thought the officiating was very good. the out of bounds call against the hawks at the front corner of the end zone, and the rushing td from roethlisberger was dead on.

just thought i'd share.....

air_hog · Post by **air_hog** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 12:59 am

F

They sucked.

They need to call WHAT THEY ACTUALLY SEE, not just call something because they are in the rush of the moment.

They need to be able to slow things down and actually watch what they are calling, not just call PI because the WR falls down etc...

Again, the get a big fat F.

skinsRin · Post by **skinsRin** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 1:52 am

redskingush · Post by **redskingush** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 8:52 am

Justice Hog · Post by **Justice Hog** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 8:55 am

Skinsfan55 · Post by **Skinsfan55** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 10:36 am

HOSS wrote:i'd give them a c- for the season.

tonight, b+
i thought the officiating was very good. the out of bounds call against the hawks at the front corner of the end zone, and the rushing td from roethlisberger was dead on.

just thought i'd share.....

WHAT!?! A B- for the superbowl?! After a phantom hold that took back a Stevens catch on the 1? After a terrible call in the endzone that took back a Jackson TD catch?

Even Steve Young called that a terrible call that should have been a touchdown catch.

No question about it, the officiating in the Super Bowl this year was absolutely horrible.

The NFL refs in 2005-06 get an absolute F- from me.

hkHog · Post by **hkHog** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 10:59 am

D- They're ruining the game, something must be done by the NFL.

Deadskins · Post by **Deadskins** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 3:09 pm

F--- (that's F minus minus minus, mods, not a substitute for a curse word

)

Redskin in Canada · Post by **Redskin in Canada** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 3:20 pm

They are human beings. They will make mistakes, everybody will. But this season was a disater. No matter how much slack anybody wants to cut them, this was a particularly bad officiating season.

This is serious enough to reconsider the whole approach. They should become professionals just like others officials are. The system should reward and punish economically good and bad performances, respectively.

Why would a great ref be paid the same as a terrible one? It does not happen anywhere else.

Ah! My grade D minus because there some games that were very well officiated. We can not condem all of them all of the time.

Deadskins · Post by **Deadskins** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 5:03 pm

Redskin in Canada wrote:They are human beings. They will make mistakes, everybody will. But this season was a disater. No matter how much slack anybody wants to cut them, this was a particularly bad officiating season.

This is serious enough to reconsider the whole approach. They should become professionals just like others officials are. The system should reward and punish economically good and bad performances, respectively.

Why would a great ref be paid the same as a terrible one? It does not happen anywhere else.

Ah! My grade D minus because there some games that were very well officiated. We can not condem all of them all of the time.

I'm ok with a few mistakes during the course of a season, but there were bad calls in every single game, and two games were stolen from us on two particularly egregious instances that were even reviewed before the poor call was upheld. But calls like in last night's game that only went against Seattle really tick me off. I understand that the refs try to call only a few penalties in the playoffs and SB, but you have to call them evenly against both teams. I saw Pittsburgh holding on numerous big plays where it was not called. Seattle wasn't so lucky.

gibbsfan · Post by **gibbsfan** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 11:07 am

from start to finish i give them a d-...
thats because i,ve seen some game thats were ok and times they were terrible.
superbowl plain sucked so i give them a (f) for the superbowl.

they need some qwork to say the least......

hkHog · Post by **hkHog** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 11:31 am

I just can't believe that people are acting like this is a new problem. The officiating has been terrible for a few years now. In week 3 I remember all the guys on ESPN and Fox complaining about it saying that it needed to be sortd out and it just got worse.

Drastic changes have to be made. The NFL should be embarassed that the second most viewed television event in history was made a mockery by the officiating crew. Think about the impressions that all the casual observers who don't watch week-in and week-out are going to draw. As someone on ESPN.com wrote (to paraphrase) "I'm not saying this was a conspiracy, I think it was just bad calls, however if you were purposely trying to give the game to the Steelers those are exactly the calls that you would make." The NFL has almost lost all of its credibility. Major changes have to be made before people stop believing that the game is being decided by the two teams on the field because quite often it isn't.

EDIT: Actually, the more I think about it the more I am starting to think it WAS a conspiracy and I'll tell you why. How many times this year have you seen offensive pass interference? What, twice? And normally WRs are all over the guys covering them. That was also a very late flag only thrown after the defender complained. You can call holding on every play so why call it with a late flag on the most important play of the game when replays clearly show there was no holding. To me the only explaination of those calls is gross incompetence or trying to give Pittsburg the game. They just don't make sense no matter how you look at them.

Chris Luva Luva · Post by **Chris Luva Luva** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 11:47 am

Im glad that the NFL is getting blasted for this. There couldn't have been a grander stage for them to get embarassed on. This is the most successful league and they dont believe we deserve the best officiating crew possible! Thats a slap in the face. Its a slap to us and the teams. Hopefully in the aftermath of this debacle someone will step up. I wouldn't be shocked if they leave it the same, the older I get the less faith I have in people to do the right thing.

SkinsJock · Post by **SkinsJock** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 12:22 pm

I also think that this has been a problem and a major concern for the NFL for too long. This past few years the quality of officiating has been progressively worse and that game is hopefully going to lead to some changes.

I do not know if having "full time, paid officials" is the answer but surely the officiating mistakes in the 2 playoff games involving the Steelers (the Polamalu call vrs Indianapolis and the bogus Seattle holding call in particular) should lead to a big "WTF" from the NFL.

AZHog · Post by **AZHog** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 12:24 pm

Start to finish, I think a D minus is almost too generous.

hkHog · Post by **hkHog** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 12:52 pm

hkHog wrote:As someone on ESPN.com wrote (to paraphrase) "I'm not saying this was a conspiracy, I think it was just bad calls, however if you were purposely trying to give the game to the Steelers those are exactly the calls that you would make."

I found it. It wasn't on ESPN but on Warpath Insiders. I think he makes a really good point:

I am not one to believe that there is any conspiracy to tilt the officiating towards one team or another. As a practical matter, there isn’t enough gain in having, say, the Steelers win to balance the risk of the incredible damage the league would suffer if word of any plot to fix a game were to get out.

That being said, I will say this. If a crew of officials, for whatever reason, was inclined to fix a game they would have made exactly the calls they made against the Seahawks on Sunday. The timing and impact of the calls could not have been better had there been a sinister plot to ensure that the Steelers would be crowned as champs.

http://redskins.scout.com/2/497410.html

Irn-Bru · Post by **Irn-Bru** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 1:52 pm

That being said, I will say this. If a crew of officials, for whatever reason, was inclined to fix a game they would have made exactly the calls they made against the Seahawks on Sunday. The timing and impact of the calls could not have been better had there been a sinister plot to ensure that the Steelers would be crowned as champs.

This simply isn't true. How about a call to reverse the Seattle interception that saved the 'Hawks from being down by more than 2 TDs?

How about calling offsides on the Hawks more than once given their constant infractions throughout the game? How about calling holding on the o-line more often?

Correlation does not prove causation. The statement that "I'm not saying that there is a conspiracy, but if there was we wouldn't know the difference" has a pretty obvious intention, in my opinion.

On the season as a whole, I'd give officials a C. This wasn't a great season for refs, but I agree with nkHog:

I just can't believe that people are acting like this is a new problem. The officiating has been terrible for a few years now. In week 3 I remember all the guys on ESPN and Fox complaining about it saying that it needed to be sortd out and it just got worse.

Officiating has never been "great" because you only notice mistakes and really, really well done calls. 95% of good jobs get overlooked, or are begrudgingly acknowledged in statements like "well, at least they didn't screw things up."

I'd say that the problem is likely older than *just* the last few years. But, the problem has become worse with how fast the game is today compared to years ago. Football is truly a game of inches, and the mistakes are just becoming a bit more obvious as the game gets faster and as slow motion gets slower and more detailed. I think there is no way this season gets an F on officiating. 20 years from now we won't remember this as 'the season of poor oficiating' (it probably won't even take 20 years). At that point, we'll be concerned with how "unprecedentedly horrible" the officiating is in that season, etc. . .

In my opinion, this is a case where there is nothing new under the sun.

Skinsfan55 · Post by **Skinsfan55** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 2:31 pm

The NFL needs FULL TIME refs, the guys they have now are part time guys, it's ridiculous.

For the most successful league in American sports to be working with old refs who work part time in between gardening and whatnot is a sham.

I'd prefer guys who have been reffing for years, where officiating can be pursued as a career kind of. Like baseball!

People complain about MLB umpires but they are by FAR the best, most accurate gamecallers in sports.

The NFL needs full timers.

Irn-Bru · Post by **Irn-Bru** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 2:35 pm

Skinsfan55 wrote:For the most successful league in American sports to be working with old refs who work part time in between gardening and whatnot is a sham.

I agree. People have been calling for full time refs for years. Instant replay has helped, but it'd be nice to see NFL refs as full time paid, dedicated workers of the sport.

People complain about MLB umpires but they are by FAR the best, most accurate gamecallers in sports.

The NFL needs full timers.

While I agree with your conclusion, I have to add this: if NFL refs only had to pay attention to as much as MLB umpires do, they'd be making much more accurate calls. My 2 cents

Skinsfan55 · Post by **Skinsfan55** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 2:54 pm

I disagree that the MLB umpires have to pay attention less FFA.

I mean, NFL refs get constant breaks in the form of TV timeouts, 6 timeouts a game (more or less) the change of quarters, halftime...

MLB umpires are on their feet through the entire 9 innings (which takes just as long as a game) have to keep eyes peeled for balls/strikes, check swings, traps, catches, etc. etc. all stuff that can happen in a split second, and from a worse vantage point than that given to NFL refs.

I know they have a tough job, I was an intermural ref so I know a little of what they go through... but as a trained professional they would do a much better job. It has MUCH less to do with how often they pay attention.

hkHog · Post by **hkHog** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 3:06 pm

Skinsfan55 wrote:The NFL needs FULL TIME refs, the guys they have now are part time guys, it's ridiculous.

For the most successful league in American sports to be working with old refs who work part time in between gardening and whatnot is a sham.

I'd prefer guys who have been reffing for years, where officiating can be pursued as a career kind of. Like baseball!

People complain about MLB umpires but they are by FAR the best, most accurate gamecallers in sports.

The NFL needs full timers.

I agree. The refs also need to be in better shape. Maybe proffesionalism will help that. How often do you see an offical way out of position to make a call because he is too slow or out of shape. The game is so fast nowadays we either need extremely good athletes calling the games or more guys on the field.

The Champ Bailey int against the Pats is a perfect example of this. Ben Watson and Champ Bailey were at the other end of the field before any of the officials were at the 50. None of them were in position to make the call.

Irn-Bru · Post by **Irn-Bru** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 3:14 pm

Skinsfan55 wrote:I disagree that the MLB umpires have to pay attention less FFA.

I mean, NFL refs get constant breaks in the form of TV timeouts, 6 timeouts a game (more or less) the change of quarters, halftime...

MLB umpires are on their feet through the entire 9 innings (which takes just as long as a game) have to keep eyes peeled for balls/strikes, check swings, traps, catches, etc. etc. all stuff that can happen in a split second, and from a worse vantage point than that given to NFL refs.

I know they have a tough job, I was an intermural ref so I know a little of what they go through... but as a trained professional they would do a much better job. It has MUCH less to do with how often they pay attention.

I wasn't commenting on how often umpires and refs need to be officiating. I also wasn't saying that umpires have an easy job compared to NFL refs--this is no attack on umpires. (And, as an aside, there are plenty of breaks in MLB--think about the average time between each and every pitch. It's not like NFL refs are ever really sitting down, either. . .)

What I think isn't really debatable is that MLB umpires have a shorter list of things that they must pay attention to, even if it is constant and intense. (It may even be more intense than a given NFL play, but that's another matter). Making the call at home plate (or first) can be a very tough job, but a particular umpire will only be focusing on that very thing. It's hard, but they make the right calls.

It seems that NFL refs have a much wider demand on the things they must look out for. In addition to calling the play dead only when it should be called dead, spotting exact locations of balls, etc., any range of penalties can happen anywhere on the field at any given time. Were their job simplified with respect to the number of things they have to pay attention to, we would consequently see more accurate calls.