Officiating
 

First off I’m not blaming our all losses on the refs. We did plenty to screw ourselves. The first Atlanta game was poorly officiated in Atlanta’s favor but it looked like they tried to save face when Atlanta came to the dome and made some calls in our favor. To me “make up calls” is tampering.
It’s not just us. Several games across the league had horrible officiating. There were calls in other games that arguably effected the outcome.

I think it has gotten out of hand and I think the league is testing the waters here to see how much the fans will let them get away with so the league has more control over the outcome of the games. We all know it’s all about ratings and the NFL knows exactly which matchups draw the most.

I think the next 3 years will be a critical time for the NFL. They need to decide if they want to be WWE or if they want to let these players play and if there are a few snooze fest games so be it.

It’s just gotten obviously bad.

The PI spot of foul penalty is bull**** too. That’s too easy of a call to make on pretty much any play which can immediately change a games outcome.

Re: Officiating
 

I agree that the spot foul on PI needs overhauled. And crappy officiating is in the news too much, but I would also contend there are a lot of things factoring into it. I believe technology is making it to easy to spend too much time on looking at things like challenges, missed calls was he in, was he out, catch-catch no catch. We can slow it down to nano frames....with the challenges there is to much time spent on looking at them, the announcers are pissed, the fans are pissed, players hate standing around forever. Poor officiating has been going on forever, just watch a game from the seventies on replay, difference is the call was made, no slow mo replays, no 5 minute challenges, no ESPN replaying it 100 times when it’s missed....today any controversial miss or bad call is shown everywhere and talked about on one of 100 forums where us fans want someone’s head. We didn’t get to see most of the many, many missed or crappy calls because they weren’t on one of the 15 or so cameras on the field. We accepted it and moved on. I think making full time officials will help, but poor calls, misinterpretation of the rules, yaddi yaddi will endure.

Re: Officiating
 

Re: Officiating
 

Anyone remember that Monday Night game where Jerome Boger gave Vince Young a high five moments after gifting the Titans a W over Texans in a well timed "phantom" penalty? The league went to great lengths in covering it up.

Or how about Gene Salvatore measuring a first downs with a piece of paper. That looked pretty ridiculous in front of a national audience. I guess rock, paper scissors is next.

NFL refs are becoming a bit of a joke and WWE"ish" ... very scripted and contrived.

Re: Officiating
 

You cannot analyze each play frame by frame. That's thing number one on my list. The rules have become silly and no human can officiate a game without New York on the line. The rule book looks like a text book on tax code.

Re: Officiating
 

Fans want it right, Vegas wants it right, Goodhell wants it right, but the reality is, it’s a high speed game that relies on humans to make calls but are critiqued and over ridden by the “eye” in the sky to correct it .therefore there will be errors and frustrations. My two cents is people, fans me included, Have expectations that may exceed reality. The rule book reflects it, look at the bs catch rule, or the defensive holding/illegal contact...how many times are these shown on replays, thousands upon thousands times a game. So the rules starts getting tweaked to “get it right” people get pissed. The speed of the game, the elite specimens who play, the precision of each position....maybe we need less rules?

Re: Officiating
 

Trust me on this.... No one that has played offensive line wants it 100% right. If all penalties were caled you’d have a holding call every down.

Fans and Vegas wantnit right when something doesn’t swing in their favor, no one is standing up screaming at the TV “holding my ass, they earned that first down”.

Officiating is like drugs and violence in the respect that nothing has gotten worse in the last 30 years.... Thanks to the internet and ‘super slow motion drone insta review multiple replay 3D cam’ there is greater exposure.

Other than offsides or encroachment, let them play.

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The NFL is almost unwatchable now. I remain obsessed but I don’t really even like the product anymore.

Re: Officiating
 

In the first half of the game, I couldn't shake that 'Home Cookin' feeling with some of the calls that were being made. 6 penalties for 92 yards with most on two PI calls (one of them dubious). Penalties really change the fabric of the game; especially when they're not called consistently through all four quarters. You can't call ticky-tack PI penalties in the 1st 3 quarters and then 'let them play' in the last 5 minutes.

Re: Officiating
 

The 3rd and 1 call really annoyed me. Murray was nowhere near the first down, our guys did a fantastic job and the refs just marched the ball a yard and half forward. That led to a TD.