Enough Is Enough With These NFL Replacement Refs

Tonight on Monday Night Football, the NFL’s “Replacement Referees” will be on center stage once again to make an abortion out of the greatest game on the face of the earth.  Week one was deemed a “success”.  Week two was “not that bad”.  But with all but one game left in this week, week three has been a complete disaster.  If Rodger Goodell and his cronies weren’t watching the DirecTV Sunday Ticket yesterday and punching themselves in the testicles repeatedly, then they will probably get four hours worth of chances tonight.

Notice how I didn’t say three hours?  That’s because games are running dangerously close to  FOUR hours this season.  There are seven EXTREMELY under-qualified guys out there, rocking Foot Locker employee gear.  When a flag is thrown, there are more refs discussing the penalty then there are women on an episode of “The View”.  I’m all for getting the call correct, but when it takes a good two to three minutes, five times per game, it gets absurd.  Then let’s not forget to mention that on more than one occasion, the small village meeting concludes with the wrong decision being made on where to spot the ball or what the penalty call was.

As most of our followers know, I am a Dallas Cowboys fan and do everything I can to not play favorites when writing about them.  I’ve watched all three games they have played and of course there have been many terrible calls on both sides.  For example, in the Giants game, the pass interference not called at the goal line was just terrible.  But for me, when players are in serious danger of getting badly hurt, there is NO EXCUSE.  The first incident happened to Cowboys WR Kevin Ogletree.  With about three minutes left in the first half, the ‘Boys were driving deep into the Bucs territory.  On a 3rd and 12, Romo gets flushed out of the pocket, does his thing, and fires into the left corner of the end zone to Kevin Ogletree and lands incomplete, about ten feet to his right.  This is why…

Yes, that is an official’s hat that gets thrown into Ogletree’s feet that he nearly blows an ACL out on.  The only reason a hat should ever be thrown by an official is to signify that a play had stepped out of bounds and returned to the field of play, making him an ineligible receiver.  Since the NFL is as good as MLB, I can’t embed the video, but watch the whole play and tell me where Ogletree went out of bounds?  The other thing about this play that I can’t understand is, why is the hat being thrown into the end zone in the first place?  The hat is to be thrown OUT OF BOUNDS where the player stepped out.  Not onto the field of play, nor in the direction of any players.

The other play that was an abortion was a helmet to helmet sack on Romo that appeared to knock him completely out.  2:45 into the clip you see the vicious hit on which no penalty was called.  If there is one thing that bothers me to no end, it’s when officials miss that sort of call.  The referee is no more than 15 feet away on the play and completely misses it.

I was mainly focused on that game yesterday, but watched almost all of the Sunday Night game.  I thought Collinsworth and Michaels were spot-on all night.  I’m glad that they were lambasting the officiating any time that they could.  The entire first quarter was marred by after the whistle activity.  Cheap shot after cheap shot by both teams, with ZERO flags thrown.  Collinsworth hit it right on the head when he said that all the officials had to do was throw a few flags, and the nonsense would stop.  Well, the didn’t, and the crap continued all night.  In the game there was everything from phantom pass interference calls, to blatant non calls that absolutely effected the outcome of the game.

Bill Belichick was so enraged with not only the outcome of the game, but obviously with the officiating.  After the Ravens kicker made an ugly as hell 27 yard field goal that appeared to possibly miss wide right, Belichick ran after an official and tried to grab him by the arm.  The official was having no part of it and shrugged him off.  It’s pretty surprising that Belickick would do that after a mandate was handed down from the commissioner’s office for coaches to lay off the berating of the officials.

Washington Redskins offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan accepted responsibility Monday for his unsportsmanlike conduct penalty during the final confusing seconds of a loss to the Cincinnati Bengals.

According to an ESPN.com report, “Kyle Shanahan, son of head coach Mike Shanahan, was given the penalty for berating an official as the Redskins were attempting to drive for a tying touchdown in Sunday’s 38-31 defeat. Robert Griffin III spiked the ball with seven seconds remaining at Cincinnati’s 34-yard line, and tight end Fred Davis was called for a false start as the offense lined up for the next play.

At least one official apparently indicated — erroneously — that there would be a 10-second runoff because of the false start penalty, which would run out the clock. Cincinnati’s coaches and players along the sideline then walked onto the field, thinking the game was over.”  “When I overheard the official tell the head coach that the game was over after the false start penalty, I tried to explain that the game was not over,” Kyle Shanahan’s statement said. “That is what resulted in the unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. I tried to get an explanation of how I could get that penalty when half of the other team was on the field as well.”

Just another instance where these replacement refs have NO idea what’s going on.  It’s just pathetic that they are so incompetent.

The last blatant dumbass move of the day went to the crew that was officiating the 49ers at the Vikings.  This was also the crew that was involved in the complete disaster last Monday night.  Jim Harbaugh, who is easily my most disliked coach, somehow conned this crew into TWO extra challenges in the game.   First off, Harbaugh was one of the coaches who had a stern talking to about killing the officials. The guy is a complete hot head and has been guilty of this not only this year, but last year as well.  But to his credit, he found some way to intimidate these poor excuses for zebras, into these two extra challenges.  Early on in the game, the crew called an illegal block … on the kicking team.  The ref tried to cover his ass by saying that “By rule, there is no flag on the play.” Idiot.

In the fourth quarter with 3:33 left, the 49ers called a timeout after a short gain by Vikings RB Toby Gerhart.  But then, Harbaugh threw a challenge flag after he saw on a replay that Gerhart may have fumbled, and 49ers linebacker Patrick Willis landed on the ball.  But the 49ers had just used their last timeout, and you need to have at least one timeout to challenge a play.  What is even MORE absurd is the referee’s explanation of the fiasco after the game…

“Hey, this is something that I want to challenge, but I just used my last timeout, can I challenge and get my timeout back? How does that work?’

“He asked the guys on the side and they came over and got me,” Roan added. “What I told him was, ‘Well you challenged it not knowing what the result of the play was going to be.’ So I granted him the challenge and we went and looked at it. That was wrong. I should not have. In order to do that, he has to have two timeouts left.”

Que?  You only need ONE timeout.  GEEZ.  This guy is getting paid to know the rules by the way.  Can the NFL please just cut Ed Hochuli a check and give him a god damn 401k?  Is it that tough for a league that made like $3 billion dollars last year?

At least these jabroni’s haven’t screwed up the Monday Night Football game yet. It’s still early…