Zebras deciding the game (1 Viewer)

[daveR]

Offshoot topic. Does it matter to you if the officiating determines a game rather than the players?

 

[Intergalactic Kegger]

Nah doesn't matter. I'm in it for the fantasy football.

 

[Stinkin Ref]

this is stupid thus limited reponses......for the most part they do an incredible job at a very difficult and thankless jobs.....rarely do they have a major impact on a game and ultimately, teams need to do what they need to do to win the games.....score more points.....the refs have very little impact on games and 97% of their calls are correct.....every time they miss one, all hell breaks loose, but nobody says anything on the other 97 calls they get correct.....every fan is going to get burned once in awhile by a call they think cost their team a game......but as soon as a player plays a perfect game and a coach coaches a perfect game, the refs will call a perfect game, and honestly they do it a lot..........

reffing is one of the few occupations where you are expected to be perfect every day......and this is dealing with split second decisions made by athletes usually working at very high speeds....maybe we all need to get a reality check and have the way we do our jobs scrutinizeded and questioned immediately in front of millions of people....

 

[CalBear]

25 years ago today:

Regardless, the chaos made officiating very challenging, and the officials huddled and ruled that all five laterals were legal. Numerous penalty flags had been thrown, but all were for Stanford having too many men on the field. According to referee Charles Moffett (and the NCAA football rules), the officials had the option of awarding a touchdown to Berkeley due to interference from the band, or an additional final play.Moffett later recalled the huddle:

“ I called all the officials together and there were some pale faces. The penalty flags were against Stanford for coming onto the field. I say, 'did anybody blow a whistle?' They say 'no'. I say, 'were all the laterals legal'? 'Yes'. Then the line judge, Gordon Riese, says to me, 'Charlie, the guy scored on that.' And I said, 'What?' I had no idea the guy had scored. Actually when I heard that I was kind of relieved. I thought we really would have had a problem if they hadn't scored, because, by the rules, we could have awarded a touchdown (to Cal) for (Stanford) players coming onto the field. I didn't want to have to make that call.""I wasn't nervous at all when I stepped out to make the call; maybe I was too dumb. Gee, it seems like it was yesterday. Anyway, when I stepped out of the crowd, there was dead silence in the place. Then when I raised my arms, I thought I had started World War III. It was like an atomic bomb had gone off."

 

[Liquid Tension]

Offshoot topic. Does it matter to you if the officiating determines a game rather than the players?

The answer should be get the correct calls all the time and let the players decide who wins. Of course, with human errors that will not be the case. Further, with so many calls that are open to interpretation such as Pass interference and holding the game is many times decided by the refs.

 

[Liquid Tension]

this is stupid thus limited reponses......for the most part they do an incredible job at a very difficult and thankless jobs.....rarely do they have a major impact on a game and ultimately, teams need to do what they need to do to win the games.....score more points.....the refs have very little impact on games and 97% of their calls are correct.....every time they miss one, all hell breaks loose, but nobody says anything on the other 97 calls they get correct.....every fan is going to get burned once in awhile by a call they think cost their team a game......but as soon as a player plays a perfect game and a coach coaches a perfect game, the refs will call a perfect game, and honestly they do it a lot..........reffing is one of the few occupations where you are expected to be perfect every day......and this is dealing with split second decisions made by athletes usually working at very high speeds....maybe we all need to get a reality check and have the way we do our jobs scrutinizeded and questioned immediately in front of millions of people....

Coming from stinkin ref Seriously, I agree that the job is thankless and it is VERY hard, but if you think the refs don't have a serious impact on the outcomes of games I have a VERY different opinion than you. Blow outs are blow outs and only occasionally an early "hold" that brought back that 80 yard TD would possibly have changed the outcome of the game (remember that many times a team that dominated a half got dominated in the 2nd half so football can change quickly.But, there are so many 1 or 2 score games that you can't tell me that a 40 yard PI call can't change a game. When you TiVo games it is amazing at how inconsistent holding calls and PI calls are. yes they are hard to call correctly all the time, but these can be game changing events. How many chucks beyond 5 yards do you see every game that are not called? It happens all the time, but then they call it that one time on the interception.Now, over the course of time things will even out, but in a 16 game schedule that could take years. In the original thread I posted I was in favor of instant replay because of this, but now I am positive that IR hurts the game more than helps it as the calls I talk about here can't be overturned and we get less plays to actually allow the players to decide the game.

 

[bro1ncos]

I have always been a person that believes there is very rarely a case that a game is decided solely by the refs. There are hundreds of plays in a game and each one of them has some affect on the game.

I think refs have a thankless job for the most part and are out there doing their best just like everyone else on the field.

 

[brettdj]

this is stupid thus limited reponses......for the most part they do an incredible job at a very difficult and thankless jobs.....rarely do they have a major impact on a game and ultimately, teams need to do what they need to do to win the games.....score more points.....the refs have very little impact on games and 97% of their calls are correct.....every time they miss one, all hell breaks loose, but nobody says anything on the other 97 calls they get correct.....every fan is going to get burned once in awhile by a call they think cost their team a game......but as soon as a player plays a perfect game and a coach coaches a perfect game, the refs will call a perfect game, and honestly they do it a lot..........reffing is one of the few occupations where you are expected to be perfect every day......and this is dealing with split second decisions made by athletes usually working at very high speeds....maybe we all need to get a reality check and have the way we do our jobs scrutinizeded and questioned immediately in front of millions of people....

Coming from stinkin ref Seriously, I agree that the job is thankless and it is VERY hard, but if you think the refs don't have a serious impact on the outcomes of games I have a VERY different opinion than you. Blow outs are blow outs and only occasionally an early "hold" that brought back that 80 yard TD would possibly have changed the outcome of the game (remember that many times a team that dominated a half got dominated in the 2nd half so football can change quickly.But, there are so many 1 or 2 score games that you can't tell me that a 40 yard PI call can't change a game. When you TiVo games it is amazing at how inconsistent holding calls and PI calls are. yes they are hard to call correctly all the time, but these can be game changing events. How many chucks beyond 5 yards do you see every game that are not called? It happens all the time, but then they call it that one time on the interception.Now, over the course of time things will even out, but in a 16 game schedule that could take years. In the original thread I posted I was in favor of instant replay because of this, but now I am positive that IR hurts the game more than helps it as the calls I talk about here can't be overturned and we get less plays to actually allow the players to decide the game.

Early hold, late hold. It was still a player holding. The player decided the game not the ref. A PI call did not decide the game, the player interferring decided the game.Inconsistent holding/PI or not, the players did it. Sometimes the officials view is blocked by other players. Sometimes the TV gets the best view of a hold and the official misses it. That does not mean it was not a hold. In the end the players decide the games at this level.

 

[I Am Rick James]

If you were to actually ref a game, it would be alot easier to accept that refs work extremely hard and do the very best they can to insure the players decide the game. With it being an impossible, thankless job, I am surprised they can even find people who want to be refs at all.

THEY ARE NOT TRYING TO HELP ONE TEAM BEAT ANOTHER!

Except when they do RAIDER games.

 

[Liquid Tension]

this is stupid thus limited reponses......for the most part they do an incredible job at a very difficult and thankless jobs.....rarely do they have a major impact on a game and ultimately, teams need to do what they need to do to win the games.....score more points.....the refs have very little impact on games and 97% of their calls are correct.....every time they miss one, all hell breaks loose, but nobody says anything on the other 97 calls they get correct.....every fan is going to get burned once in awhile by a call they think cost their team a game......but as soon as a player plays a perfect game and a coach coaches a perfect game, the refs will call a perfect game, and honestly they do it a lot..........reffing is one of the few occupations where you are expected to be perfect every day......and this is dealing with split second decisions made by athletes usually working at very high speeds....maybe we all need to get a reality check and have the way we do our jobs scrutinizeded and questioned immediately in front of millions of people....

Coming from stinkin ref Seriously, I agree that the job is thankless and it is VERY hard, but if you think the refs don't have a serious impact on the outcomes of games I have a VERY different opinion than you. Blow outs are blow outs and only occasionally an early "hold" that brought back that 80 yard TD would possibly have changed the outcome of the game (remember that many times a team that dominated a half got dominated in the 2nd half so football can change quickly.But, there are so many 1 or 2 score games that you can't tell me that a 40 yard PI call can't change a game. When you TiVo games it is amazing at how inconsistent holding calls and PI calls are. yes they are hard to call correctly all the time, but these can be game changing events. How many chucks beyond 5 yards do you see every game that are not called? It happens all the time, but then they call it that one time on the interception.Now, over the course of time things will even out, but in a 16 game schedule that could take years. In the original thread I posted I was in favor of instant replay because of this, but now I am positive that IR hurts the game more than helps it as the calls I talk about here can't be overturned and we get less plays to actually allow the players to decide the game.

Early hold, late hold. It was still a player holding. The player decided the game not the ref. A PI call did not decide the game, the player interferring decided the game.Inconsistent holding/PI or not, the players did it. Sometimes the officials view is blocked by other players. Sometimes the TV gets the best view of a hold and the official misses it. That does not mean it was not a hold. In the end the players decide the games at this level.

What if it was not a hold but when you reviewed there were holds not called (Happens all the time). What if the player did not interfere, but many times in the game a player was interfered with and not called? I don't understand your logic? Same exact hold (or not hold) happens and one time called and another not called; how is that the players?

 

[fatness]

How many games do referees truly decide? There are what, 90-110 plays per game? 22 players on each play, all with assignments that they carry out in widely varying levels? I think blocking and tackling decides almost all games, it just doesn't get watched much and talked about much.

 

[Liquid Tension]

How many games do referees truly decide? There are what, 90-110 plays per game? 22 players on each play, all with assignments that they carry out in widely varying levels? I think blocking and tackling decides almost all games, it just doesn't get watched much and talked about much.

I think a lot more than people think. Watch games on TiVo and really watch how many penalties could be called and then see the ones that are called. the job is VERY tough, but it is not nearly that consistent. I really think they need more refs.

 

[Sabertooth]

Wow, people really like to whine about the refs.

 

[brobe4]

Every one makes a mistake once in awhile.. Replay was born. Holding is the only call that gets on my nerves. They could call this on every play.

 

[laniquity]

They get it wrong quite a lot. The job is thankless yes but so are thousands of other jobs. The guy operating your waste treatment facility is never thanked but you'd be pretty pissed if he made as substantial a mistake as the refs do routinely.

To be honest, with the advent of DVR I've noticed more and more the non or bad calls the officials make determine the outcome of a game. To be clear, the problem is not just the bad calls the officials make but the calls they don't make that effect the outcome of the game. A team is driving towards a score, an errant pass that DB makes a play on but the WR "accidentally" knocks him down preventing the interception, the team then completes its drive for the score.

The NFL suffers from the Indy Complex, that is the need to overly protect WR and offense playmakers. Gone are the days where football was a contact sport and WR needed to fight for position to make a catch. We replaced that because Marvin Harrison is too much of a pansy to get off the line if a DB jams him.

The NFL wants to pick and chose winners and doesn't like dynasties and too that end instruct their officials to ensure victories for specific teams.

 

[BroadwayG]

I think they should let the players call their own game, just like in the playground.

 

[fatness]

How many games do referees truly decide? There are what, 90-110 plays per game? 22 players on each play, all with assignments that they carry out in widely varying levels? I think blocking and tackling decides almost all games, it just doesn't get watched much and talked about much.

I think a lot more than people think. Watch games on TiVo and really watch how many penalties could be called and then see the ones that are called. the job is VERY tough, but it is not nearly that consistent. I really think they need more refs.

Yes, but the penalties called or not called are not the most important parts of most of those plays. The blocking and tackling (and blown or executed assignments) are the things that make most plays work, or not work. What I'm trying to say is that, by focusing on possible penalty calls, you're focusing on about 1% of what happens during each play. That 1% determines very very few games. Why focus on it even more with more refs?

 

[daveR]

I initially posted this in response to the majority who said they'd rather have a tainted win than a well-called loss. I was thinking that you can't have it both ways. That is, you can't say both "Let the players decide the game" and "It's all about the W".

But, truth be told, I FEEL better after the W, no matter how it is achieved.

 

[Liquid Tension]

How many games do referees truly decide? There are what, 90-110 plays per game? 22 players on each play, all with assignments that they carry out in widely varying levels? I think blocking and tackling decides almost all games, it just doesn't get watched much and talked about much.

I think a lot more than people think. Watch games on TiVo and really watch how many penalties could be called and then see the ones that are called. the job is VERY tough, but it is not nearly that consistent. I really think they need more refs.

Yes, but the penalties called or not called are not the most important parts of most of those plays. The blocking and tackling (and blown or executed assignments) are the things that make most plays work, or not work. What I'm trying to say is that, by focusing on possible penalty calls, you're focusing on about 1% of what happens during each play. That 1% determines very very few games. Why focus on it even more with more refs?

1% I think that everyone has a part in the success of a play, but at the point of attack the hold or non hold call is pivotal. I also disagree because on a play that the QB throws up a 40 yard pass that is very short and then the defender slightly bumps the offensive player because the pass was horrible and the reward the offense with 40 yards is absurd to me. A good pass that is interfered with is one thing, but reward good play not bad. The other part is that you see the same play later in the game and it is not called.