saintfan

I come down on the side of the officials most of the time. I have some sympathy for them being asked to call games the way they're asked to call them by the league. The real demon in the whole thing is the NFL, not it's officials and certainly not the men coaching the teams, much less the broadcasters.

Gruden didn't do or say anything most fans don't do or say. There is no way the officials can be consistent at game speed when the NFL has clearly instructed them to error on the side of caution - to protect the key offensive players at all costs.

It's frustrating. Any of us can randomly watch any game on any given week and, within that game, we could find two or three BS calls. The fault of the official? I don't really thing so. I believe they are doing the best that they can do with the often silly playground rules the NFL is asking them to enforce on grown men playing a violent game at full speed.

Euph, I agree with everything you said about leading with the head. It's not good football. The problem isn't that call, is the hundreds of other calls for that foul that didn't happen. By that I mean when a player is called for that offense when he didn't commit it.

The only recourse for this issue is to make that call one that can be challenged, and we all know the NFL isn't going to do that. Their stance isn't completely void of a concern for safety, but I'd bet every penny I have that allowing for more scoring was equally considered where many of these "protect the player" safety rules are concerned.

No, you can't blame the refs. You can't blame the fans and the commentators for being baffled by the willingness the league has to flag a player for coming close to breaking a rule. It's maddening. Pereira clearly doesn't see the game from that angle.

C'mon Man...