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.

Re: Officiating
 

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.

Re: Officiating
 

I'm with the technology crowd on this one. However, I feel that because of replay the officials don't take the little bit of time they have to make a good call when it's a bang bang play because they know it's probably going to be looked at and gotten right. They too often make knee jerk reactions to plays which, I feel, has resulted in the horrible officiating we see today. I do agree that bad calls have always been in the game we just didn't notice because, as bobdog stated above, there weren't cameras all over the place to show it to us in super slomo. Something does have to be done about the officiating we see today. It has gotten way past a bad call every now and then.

Re: Officiating
 

That one set me off, too.

Re: Officiating
 

I am a conspiracy theorist. I really believe that the NFL wants the larger market teams to do well because of merchandise sales. I don't doubt that Roger Godhell does his best to schedule tough games and if that doesn't break a small market team then the officials have to give the other team the edge to win.

Oh, and I quit watching football a couple of years ago thanks to the lousy officiating and overall vibe with player protests. The game itself is just too sloppy to keep me interested.

Every time that there is a thirty second break the network is going to slip a commercial in there. And if there isn't a break they will now give us split screen commercials. The NFL is getting paid......just not enough in their opinion! :argue:

Re: Officiating
 

The commercials don't bother me much. They'll make their money - I'm usually watching the super bowl as much for the commercials as the game. I actually think the split screen commercial thing is okay. It gives announcers like Troy Aikman a moment to gather themselves. bah hahaha

http://i.imgur.com/Kpnofot.jpg

:bng:

Re: Officiating
 

Don't forget to scream " I don't care and I hate this house!!" before you slam the door!

Re: Officiating
 

Great pic of Suck & Yuck!

Re: Officiating
 

You think the NFL wanted to see the Jaguars in the Super Bowl? One single penalty against the Patriots today and that was on special teams. Not a single holding or PI.

Re: Officiating
 

Sure did look like a hold to me too. Brady is big time and Danny Amendola is a clutch little receiver.

Side note - Bortles isn't built for this.

Re: Officiating
 

Re: Officiating
 

They just need to do away with spot foul PI. Just add 10 yards

Re: Officiating
 

I don’t care nor do I want it to be 100% right as long as they are throwing flags or not throwing flags consistently between the two teams. I’ve seen several games this year where the refs seemed to have “just let them play” philosophy for one team but called every little incident on the other team.

Re: Officiating
 

They didnt want the Jags in the superbowl because they wanted to get the patriots another ring. That was very apparent the moment Minnesota got the "miracle". Now you left with 2 teams with 2 backup QBs, despite what the record is and the fact Minny beat us which shouldnt of happened, it was very apparent what was going to happen. Then more icing on the cake, Philly probably wont even score a TD in the Super Bowl if they even score at all.

Re: Officiating
 

No doubt, this was the clearest example in the first half of tampering in the Vikings. The 2 PI calls, the one where the WR was holding the DB's wrist was ridiculous, but let's call it the ref's angle, whatever. A 2 foot spot for the 1st down, was total BS, and speaking of why in the world would we not challenge?
It makes sense that the refs are told to make calls to try to keep the game close, to display a better "product", who wants to see a 40-3 superbowl? Me if the saints were up 40.
But no way should we lose to the Vikings, and that was obvious yesterday. There has always been suspect calls, like someone said earlier, but it seems like this year they have been over the top.
Someone showed me a video of Jordan pulling off the edge pressure on the same play Williams whiffed, could some the players be in on the take?

http://dailysnark.com/saints-fans-cl...s-game-rigged/

Re: Officiating
 

We didn't challenge because there was an issue with the replay monitor in the Saints coaching booth. That is also the reason given for the second half challenges that should not have been made. They were flying blind.

Re: Officiating
 

IMO yesterday's game between NE vs Jags ... lot's of non calls for the Pats. I'm never one to blame the officials, but damn call the game evenly. I don't believe Tom Thumb's team was penalized the entire game.

Side note - I'll be curious to see if the Jags exercise Bortle's 5th year option.

Re: Officiating
 

1 pentaly for 10 yds vs 98 yards.

IMO, pass interference needs to be 15 yards, automatic first down. Judgement calls similar to "defensive holding" (5 yards + 1st down) already do that.