NFL Officiating

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Regardless of the outcome of the Super Bowl, I am amazed that the NFL, being one if not the highest grossing sports industry in the States does not have full time paid officials.

Commissioner Paul Tagliabue will not hire a full time staff and has a pool of officials that they pick from to work a game on a game to game basis.

Some of the Officials in this pool, may not have actually officiated a game in 1 - 2 years.

It makes absolutely no sense that they can rely on Part Time Officials to make calls in such important games, where so much time and money on everyones part plays such a role.

Maybe Paul Tagliabue is just trying to save money and not have so many emloyee's on his Health Insurance Policy for the NFL. Until there is a full time staff of Officials I can only see that more and more games will be determined by some idiot that is actually not qualified to make the call.

Lets not forget that the NFL admitted that officials botched the final play in the New York Giants' 39-38 playoff loss to the 49ers a few yrs back.

There was also the playoff game where the Titans kicker Joe Nedney missed a 31-yard field goal early in overtime, but got another chance when Pittsburghs cornerback Dewayne Washington was given a bogus 5-yard penalty for running into the kicker.

To quote Cower:

"For a game to be decided on that call is ludicrous," Cowher said. "And for me to have to explain to an official what's reviewable and what's not is wrong. Fine me if you want. That's the truth."

On the next play, with the Steelers trying to call timeout, Nedney's kick gave the Titans a 34-31 victory.

As a result of both these examples, Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said the NFL was taking steps to avoid a recurrence of what happened.

The only thing is...these two incidents happened in different seasons and had the same reply from Tagliabue.

To sum it up...Tagliabue will never do anything to end the bad officiating as long as he is the commissioner.

The NFL will continue to suffer it would seem.

[Broly]

:fear:

[Troll King]

Are the officials in the NFL unionized?

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I would say No. This is why they are as bad as they are.

Look at Baseball...they had a union and they got screwed in the last Ump strike.

[DoTheFandango]

I say you get the people who complain on Mondays to officiate a game. They will realize how hard it is to call a play instantaneously and give the regular refs a break.

I Ump little league and sometimes it's like it's real MLB baseball out there. People have to realize I can't look everywhere at once, and maybe from some angle that is 200 feet away in the bleachers the guy at second base was safe, but here at a close 10 inches, he was out and that's my call.

People need to give more respect to these people.

[Abatis]

Since NFL officials are part-time, they usually have high-paying jobs durings the week, therefore the advantadge of this system is they can't be bribed. Since they only have a game to do a week, it's not exactly a full-time job unless you expect them to be watching eight hours of tape another four days of the week.

There are a couple of differences between the NFL and other American sports that affect how they do the officiating: only one game a week and more refrees and umpires are needed per game.

They may need to change something. Add more initial training, decrease the size of the pool of officials so they have more experience, or something, I don't know exactly they work it now, but making them full-time probably is not the answer.

[Facetious]

for the playoffs its defintiely a good idea to have teams of refs that have worked together all season, instead of a mish-mash of the "best" refs becoming a new group

[Squeezer]

I say you get the people who complain on Mondays to officiate a game. They will realize how hard it is to call a play instantaneously and give the regular refs a break.

I Ump little league and sometimes it's like it's real MLB baseball out there. People have to realize I can't look everywhere at once, and maybe from some angle that is 200 feet away in the bleachers the guy at second base was safe, but here at a close 10 inches, he was out and that's my call.

People need to give more respect to these people.

I'm pissed because I feel that these refs need to stick with their initial decision.

Initially, they called Jackson's catch a TD. Initially, the Side Judge ruled Roethlisberger out of the endzone. Initially, there was no holding.

Christ almighty, stop letting players make up your minds for you, and officiate the game.