DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Officiating.

Every week we see examples of poor calls in our games as well as other games around the league. I thought it might deserve it's own thread. I am interested in what you folks think.

For a long time I blamed officials and felt many incompetent, and still do in some ways. Take a look at last night. The Lions got jobbed by the refs and end game.

I am beginning to think that the officials get in to more trouble with the league for not throwing flags on close calls. Player safety is the answer. The league doesn't care if unwarranted flags are thrown. They care more about not missing a call on a play where a player is hit in the head or gets hands in the face, or actually takes a crack back block that hurts the player.

Every call is seen well before the offensive team breaks huddle. Every play should be reviewed. Not in the way they do it now. Just some person up in the booth seeing the replays we see. If they see something, stop the action and reverse the friggen call. If the O hurries to the line to try to beat the replay, stop action.

To me it is about getting it right. As it is, this is getting to be unwatchable.

I don't really care about bad calls. They happen. But it's to the point where the officials are deciding who wins and who loses. That's a problem. Last night was a perfect example.

It gets aggravating when they’re in SUCH key parts of the game ... like the hold on G-Rob in the last drive. Legit changed the entire game. Now, I’m not sure if it was a hold or not ... either way, whether the onus is on the players or the refs, that cant happen

I understand that humans make mistakes. And I rarely try to make a loss about the refs. As a matter of fact I can't think of the last time I did. And I won't do it in regards to the Seattle game. We shot ourselves in the foot far too many times for me to do that.

But one thing I'll say is that the one thing that troubles me is what I consider to be phantom calls. Seemingly calls out of nowhere that didn't even come close to happening. There's the blind side block that simply never happened called on Landry. That's my definition of a phantom call.

I can't say for sure which side the NFL falls on in relationship to unwarranted flags being thrown. But a strict guess on my part is you would more than likely be right. I tend to follow the money on such issues. With the settlement on the concussion issue it would be my opinion they would much rather have more flags than fewer to try and insulate themselves from further litigation.

That is where I was going with that when I talked about player safety.

No doubt we shoot ourselves in the foot, but the refs do as well.

There were a lot of bad calls in our game last week. It getting to be a joke.

Some calls are self evident, like off sides or illegal motion. Everything else can at least be viewed in the booth in a timely manner. If fans in the stadium and on TV can see a bad call well before the O is up to snap the ball, so can some official in the booth.

That is fine if the NFL wants flags thrown if it is even close to being a foul, but they should also want things called correctly.

The NFL isn't Roger Goodell. It is the owners. The people who own teams that are getting these bad calls against them.

Also, it seems darling teams rarely get game altering calls against them in the 4th quarter. You ever see Patriots get robbed of a TD? Or even a first down on 4th quarter drives?

I would like if there was a booth review of flags thrown, and the ability to overrule the call on the field, but I don't want the booth official ruling that some infraction occurred that was not called on the field.

I don't know if this is conscious or unconscious but it happens.. I doubt the NFL sits around thinking of ways to prop up good teams and keep bad teams down..

But it doesn't surprise me at all if officials, on a subconscious level, see a 50/50 call between teams like the Browns and Patriots and almost instinctively let it go in favor of the better team.. It's just human nature to give the benefit of the doubt to the person/team that you THINK is more likely to be making the right play...

Maybe it's just me because if I ever really believed the fix was in, I couldn't watch with any enthusiasm any more...

If any fans understand that the officiating is for the NE's, GB's and Dallas's of the world it's us, we see it every week and last week was another example of how the NFL stole a win from the Browns ..

Exactly. It should be used to quickly over-rule a bad (aka: Obvious) call on the field. Not to throw a pseudo-flag after the play because they saw some borderline holding that went uncalled.

The English Soccer league is already misusing replay in this fashion. They decided to implement video replay, but rather than looking to reverse bad calls made at the time, they are using it to review all aspects of a play that resulted in a goal. So a player will score a goal, and you have to wait 2 minutes to really celebrate because the VAR might decide that one of the players was marginally offside in the buildup to the goal.

I see two problems with the officiating.

1. Players selling calls. On Sunday, when Ogungobu? pushed Wilson and it drew the roughing the passer, Wilson sold that call to get the flag. He went flying like he got hit by a bus. You see Brady do this all the time, falling down when just lightly touched. Now WRs are doing it, running routes so they can purposely run into DBs to draw illegal contact flags. To me, it's the same as flopping in the NBA, and this is something the refs should start looking for and flag the team that flops.

2. Over-officiating. I think this is the bigger problem in the NFL. Both the Seahawks and Browns had long pass plays called back because of ineligiable men downfield. My point is neither of those players effected the play so why throw the flag. I get that a penalty is a penalty, but there is the letter of the law and the spirit of it. A ref needs to determine if the penalty is really that big a deal before throwing the flag. If a linemen holds and the springs the back for a big gain, throw the flag, but if a back springs for a big gain, and on the other side of the filed, there is an illegal shift, just let it go.

The NFL needs to look toward college, they know how to ref games.

I think a lot of the problem stems to the growth of replay.

I think the power of the networks over the game has grown exponentially and in tandem with the growth of replay. Not for the better. The networks LOVE replay, and the game depends on TV much more so than previous to the institution of replay

The game was more fun to watch before replay. We spend as much time debating calls as talking about teams and players. Now as another poster notes, we begin the era of flopping in the NFL. Hooray. The introduction of replay was like Pandoras box.

It is amazing to me that anyone thinks MORE replay will fix the situation. It will not. Go to a HS game and I bet you will be amazed at how nicely the game flows as intended. I say get rid of the whole damn thing. I will bet the humans who are refs call a better game without worrying about replay and the endless arguing about every call.

Did we ever get our usual "woops, our bad" on the Landry penalty from the NFL?

The correlation between more states legalizing sports gambling and the increase in games affected by seemingly poor officiating is troubling.

Why haven't sensors been put in the football yet? Why leave unnecessary "human interpretation" into things that could be easily measured remotely except to allow for the skewing of results? Why do they still have "random" people holding the chains? It'd be relatively easy to remove the likelihood of bias. The whole Jarvis TD/No TD challenge bugs me. Just because half the ball is hidden, somehow the "hidden" half ceased to exist. If the mid point of the ball is up against the goal line, how didn't the other half break the plane?

Why the NFL hasn't implemented changes? The cynical answer is that bookies are kicking back money. Whether to individual officials or the league itself is hard to say.

Or it might not be happening. But why have a system that leaves itself so open to the question?

You never see these game changing calls against the NFL darling teams, but you see them against the Browns, Lions, etc.

I am starting to believe the NFL is fixed. Only the teams they want to win, win and the teams they want to lose generally lose.

I am almost ready to give up on this sport. I sure wish I had 20 years ago.

I'd be up for the "ineligible man downfield" rule going away completely.

And the challenge system: I think each team should have one challenge per half. If they get it wrong, no penalty, but the challenge is gone. And, they should be able to challenge *anything*. These rules of when such and such is able to be challenged is... confusing and frustrating.

I coluld like the first half of that.

I don't know Dave, the Saints should have been in the Super Bowl. I think bad calls either way should be called.

No matter which way, bad calls should be corrected. I just want it right, be it for or against my team, or any team. You can't just want it for your own team.

I don't see it so much for teams as I do for player.

Face it...star players get the borderline calls. They always will.....been that way for a long time. I can accept that and know that going in

Good thread topic. It's a huge topic right now. I was working out today and there was a ton of talk about officiating. John Parry, a former NFL official and now working for ESPN, pointed out some of the big concerns. There are a lot of officials who are getting older. There has also been a huge turnover in recent years. Additionally, the newer refs don't have the officiating experience at lower levels that previous officials had. He was diplomatic, but basically he admitted that there are too many bad calls right now. Also, ESPN showed how penalty calls are way up.

We were talking about officiating on another thread in the Game Day forum and I want to reiterate what I said there. Some folks are saying that the NFL is rigged and that they favor certain teams over others. I call hogwash on that. Here is why. The NFL is making ungodly sums of money off of football. In order to "fix" games, they would have to tell numerous officials of what to do to favor certain teams. Officials get fired. Officials retire. Does anyone really believe that not one person would talk? Does anyone really believe that the NFL would jeopardize their money by tainting the game? Nope.......it would never happen. The NFL is about money. They are not going to risk it over a scandal because they like certain teams and not others. That is just childish thinking.

Here is where I think the problem lies. Each year, the NFL implements more rules. Many of these rules are championed by the media. Rules such as leading w/the crown of the helmet and PI rule.

Take a minute and think about how many of the newer rules are subjective. I played football, but I wasn't good enough to play at the NFL level. Dudes, things happen so fast on a football field. We are very instinctual as players. We react in a heartbeat. And nowhere is the game faster than at the NFL level. So, how the hell are you going to determine intent. A dude lowers his head while running as fast as he can. Did he do it to hurt someone or is that just kind of a natural reaction when you see a speeding bullet coming at you? I was a tough guy, but there is reason people yell out "duck." We don't want to get hit in the head, but sometimes, you duck out of self-preservation and you are now penalized for targeting. It happens fast, bros.

My main point is that the NFL has added more and more rules to the game. They have added a ton of "subjective" rules where the officials have to interpret intent. My daughter and I were talking about it on the phone tonight. She was a great athlete and I got her to think about her basketball career. I asked her to think about about how she performed if she didn't totally understand the play and how it effected her reaction time and decision making. I then brought up how much better we perform when we are instinctual rather than thinking too much. She saw it right away and we had a great conversation.

Y'all............the league is putting too much on the plate of the officials and it is hurting the quality of officiating in the league. There is no fix. It's about too many rules and more specifically, too many subjective rulings.

I think there are some simple things the league can do to fix the majority of the problems.

1. Streamline the rules. Let's get rid of some of these procedural penalties like illegal shifts and motions. I hate it when I see good positive plays called back because the receiver wasn't set or there are too many men on the line. If you watch college or high school, they don't have nearly as many of these BS calls. I think it's these calls that are slowing the game down not the PI and roughing calls. Also, it would free up the officials so they wouldn't be so overwhelmed, and it could give us more exotic formations.

2. Punishment should fit the crime. Why is offensive holding a 10 yard penalty, but defensive holding a 5 yard penalty and automatic first down. Make both a 10 yard penalty and be done with it.

3. Look for flopping. I think this is a huge problem, QBs falling over at the slightest tap to draw flags. Also, WRs running routes and bump DBs to get illegal contact flags. If a guy flops, don't throw the flag and warn the player, if it happens again, flag the flopper for unsportsmanlike conduct.

4. Have a booth official looking at every play. He is just like any on field official, but he is in the booth watch the whole field. If he sees a missed call, he buzzes the Ref and the ref throws the flag. And there is no ref going to the monitor, to look at it, it's a penalty the same as any other on-field official. But he has the play clock to buzz in, if he misses it, then he misses it.

Just some ideas.

There are literally millions of dollars worth of cameras recording every angle of every play of e every game.

There is no reason not to get every call right.

We can all see it at home.

Also, why do the Refs that called the penalty also review it?

That’s like asking a murder suspect to investigate the murder.

Should be a TEAM of Officials watching from New York.

NFL makes 10+ BILLION dollars a year.

The only reason they’re getting calls wrong is because THEY WANT TO.

Why? Dunno. I’m not as smart as the NFL Analytics professionals

J/c

In terms of a play like Landry’s at the goal line ... literally just place sensors along the goal lines and OB lines and chips in the football ... have it attached to a lighting system. When it crosses the goal line have it flash green

I agree on too many rules that require subjective calls.

I also agree it is natural to lower you head when about to hit something. You cringe up which means you tighten your shoulders to bolster your neck and you lower your head to protect your face. It is natural reaction. Nobody is going to go in to a tackle face first.

j/c Intentional or not, you can't tell me that the Browns do not get more of the truly bogus and game changing calls/non-calls than other teams do. Blatantly wrong calls that hand our opponents extra downs on game winning drives and put the kabosh to ours.

I don't know if we get more or not. I don't watch many NFL games if the Browns aren't one of the teams.

No doubt some players catch a few breaks, but it has always been that way. Star players get more calls than do non star players. It's like that in any sport.

I suppose bad teams have to fight the officials more then do good teams.

Kitchens actually took points off the board not the refs.

I like the notion, but a chip in the football won't tell you if the players knee was down first.

how about a separate sensor in each player’s uniform ... they connect with the sensor in the ball (to tell you who has the ball) and it would play out accordingly then. I have to assume that there is the technology to implement this

We all have our opinions on this and I am not saying who is right and who is wrong, but I am in favor of fewer rules and speeding the game up rather than slowing it down. I absolutely despise watching games that have a lot of penalties and our interrupted by replays. I watch the games to see action on the field and don't want to watch a game that features the referees talking to me.

you'd be talking some type of Near Field Communication technology, really hard to do given proximity of players to the ball on any play, especially if being tackled etc

Not saying it can't be done - one day it will, I'm sure. But you would need sensors all over the players uniform: elbows, knees, hips, glutes, shoulders, and each has to work perfectly at all times or they're useless. Imagine having to live with a call that says a player's knee was down when it clearly wasn't. How would you know if contact was made with turf or another player? Soon we'd have players putting illegal sensors in their uniforms, etc... Where would the sensors be in the football? Should it be tested before a goal line situation to make sure it's working?

A lot to work through before we ever get to that day, and then a huge decision... are the minds and eyes of humans no longer part of the equation? It's a violent game, even the best "sensors" will get damaged. Will we have another layer of subjectivity when an official says "hey, I want to take a look at that anyway". If so, the entire idea becomes a charade.

Oh, I agree with that ... it’s just the reality now with how much money is at stake that the game will never return to those simpler times IMO

I don't like to think so but it could be crooked refs. It would only take a couple of calls at certain spots in the game to change the outcome IE Browns/ Seahawks.

Why don't we see this many horrible calls in College football? They do make some bad calls but not at the rate of the NFL.

Thought this was hilarious...

Haha!!

I definitely agree.

I would also add a couple of on field officials, and require that all games have the same number and type of cameras.

I agree, or as I have mentioned, fewer refs on the field.