Officials/Refs (Any Accountability?)

[JackStraw]

I get more upset at players(drops, blown coverage, missed tackles, poor play execution, emotional control, and general discipline) than I do officials

I actually get pissed when we get handed unwarranted flags in our favor. I don't want the easy route to 6.

Allowing the refs the ruin the game is a choice. Certain evils just can't be defeated or contained and learning to coexist with such is on me.

I want to reality show the NFL up a little and have a pre determined amount of crew chiefs to be voted out at mid season and seasons end. Playoff officials to be determined by coaching staffs ineligible for post season. Home teams in post season to bid on list of qualified crews.

I would also like to see AFC/NFC crews because familiarity breeds contempt.

And one more radical idea - add an official(crew chief, the eye on the sky is just a better view) to be assigned to watch the television broadcast throughout the game and have primary duties making calls with the ability to overturn and/or flag no calls, in real time.

 

[Mackeyser]

I guess I’m just not understanding your point. Are you telling me that the NFL picks a handful of games every week and tells the refs to keep them close? Why bother? With the advent of the salary cap most games are competitive. Why tarnish the product and take that risk? I mean Jerry Jones entertained a bus load of referees and his team hasn’t won anything in 20 years. I just don’t get your point. Refs are going to make mistakes and as for blowouts refs always adjust to move the games along. Whether it’s expanding the strike zone, calling less fouls, etc. it happens in every sport when the score gets out of hand.

I'll try to be brief.

I'm saying that the NFL saw an opportunity with a team called the Patriots after 9/11 to galvanize support for the NFL that they'd never experienced at least to that degree.

Super Bowl 36 wasn't just the nonsense that happened before and during the game, but also the game before which was the infamous "tuck rule" game where they pulled an obscure rule from the rule book to save the Patriot's season. Prior to that call, if I'm not mistaken, they hadn't called that call in YEARS. Moreover, there was an unwritten rule in the playoffs that you just "let them play".

The Patriots took the "let them play" allowance so far beyond reasonable that the NFL changed the rules regarding officiating after SB36, THAT'S how egregious it was.

Once the NFL saw the results of all that support, they seemingly started watching and waiting until late in the season to highlight a narrative and use occasional calls by refs to steer games to fit the narrative.

Every year it has gotten more pervasive and with the NFL investing heavily in Fantasy Football gambling, the impetus to create broader narratives and week to week uncertainty are ramped up for literally billions of reasons.

This year, it seems to have started early. Of course, the peril of starting early is that injuries happen which is why in the past they waited until there was some idea of who was playing for what and what stories had naturally emerged. It's a lot easier to give an existing narrative a slight push than create one from whole cloth.

I believe in serendipity and divine providence. What I don't believe is that billion dollar corporations have things go their way in such fashions as to defy the laws of probability.

If the NFL pushes any harder, Gillette Stadium will turn into a giant bowl of petunias only to be crushed by a giant whale falling from space...

 

[RhodyRams]

If the NFL pushes any harder, Gillette Stadium will turn into a giant bowl of petunias only to be crushed by a giant whale falling from space...

curiously, the only thought the bowl of petunias had was "oh no,not again"

 

[LesBaker]

Will it be a pole that is too hot to handle?

She looks familiar.

 

[Ken]

I get more upset at players(drops, blown coverage, missed tackles, poor play execution, emotional control, and general discipline) than I do officials

I actually get ticked when we get handed unwarranted flags in our favor. I don't want the easy route to 6.

Allowing the refs the ruin the game is a choice. Certain evils just can't be defeated or contained and learning to coexist with such is on me.

I want to reality show the NFL up a little and have a pre determined amount of crew chiefs to be voted out at mid season and seasons end. Playoff officials to be determined by coaching staffs ineligible for post season. Home teams in post season to bid on list of qualified crews.

I would also like to see AFC/NFC crews because familiarity breeds contempt.

And one more radical idea - add an official(crew chief, the eye on the sky is just a better view) to be assigned to watch the television broadcast throughout the game and have primary duties making calls with the ability to overturn and/or flag no calls, in real time.

Those are some good ideas. Anything that can increase the accountability of referees is a step in the right direction. We are not the only fan base that's talking about the refs trying (and succeeding) in making games more competitive by calling marginal or outright incorrect penalties to favor the losing team. The Rams, and any team that does not want this to happen to them, need to get large leads in the first half so the refs feel its not worth the trouble of trying to help the losing team.

 

[Legatron4]

View: https://twitter.com/footballzebras/status/1055503623571030016?s=21

 

[Ken]

A lot more than just Hugo need to be fired. Miss a clear false start - you're fired. Miss obvious and blatant offensive holding over and over again - no problem.

 

[Mackeyser]

I'm SHOCKED that there has been any accountability at all for NFL refs.

I think with all the tech available to fans, it's getting harder and harder for people to miss things.

And the NFL really doesn't have an answer for why the game isn't called straight up.

With the outfield cam that showed the strike zone, it became abundantly clear how badly the game was being called, fans rebelled and then I think it was Fox that superimposed a digital strike zone and showed the placement of the ball as it crossed the plate based on multiple cameras and fans had evidence.

Umps were now beholden to calling actual balls and strikes straight up rather than their preferred strike zone where a guy who'd been jawing at him would get a strike zone the size of Montana that started at the outside edge of the plate.

Here's hoping that this is the beginning of the game being called straight up.

If they do that, than salaries for the best OL will skyrocket and you'll see more talent go toward the OL. It'll take time, but only two years ago, there was a question of there being a severe dearth of quality QBs in the NFL. Now, even Cleveland seems to have a legit QB.

If they just called the game straight, the players would like it better in the end because there would be so much less confusion and no games where they get called for stuff either they didn't do or called for stuff they do every day and haven't gotten called for it.

 

[Da-Rock]

Did he ref any of the Ram games?

 

[Merlin]

Rams should put together a LOWLIGHT clip of all the holds on Aaron Donald and tweet that BS out.

Or maybe one of us should. It's effin ridiculous.

 

[Psycho_X]

View: https://twitter.com/mikepereira/status/1055600068957429762?s=21

 

[Ramer]

Rams should put together a LOWLIGHT clip of all the holds on Aaron Donald and tweet that BS out.

Or maybe one of us should. It's effin ridiculous.

 

[ScotsRam]

It's football. If you look hard enough you'll see a hold on every single play. You guys are acting like we never get a call in our favour. It's easy to remember the ones that go against us but there are plenty we get away with and plenty generous calls we get at the expense of other teams.

There's not a massive conspiracy, the refs just aren't that good.

 

[RamsSince1969]

She looks familiar.

Fireman: "Does your wife smoke in bed? Funny, she does with me!"

 

[Merlin]

It's football. If you look hard enough you'll see a hold on every single play.

Re: Donald the holds are far more often than what is usual or acceptable and the refs are missing blatant calls where guys are beat and are hanging on him, have their arms around him, pullin on him, etc. He is the best DL in the game and everyone knows it. Start calling them. And like I've said before the RAMS need to be making this stuff visible somehow, which is why I think if I'm the owner I'd have my media types post up a lowlight clip of the most egregious holds that weren't called on the game's best defensive player.

As to the other stuff, who knows. But I will always remain convinced the Patriots cheated and were allowed to hold their way to their first championship. That cannot be denied IMO.

 

[iamme33]

What's more credible? That the NFL has established a broad narrative using refs (who cannot be criticized even by ownership) to sway outcomes or that all this great story telling is the result of this miraculous serendipity even more unlikely than a room full of monkeys at typewriters giving us the complete works of Shakespeare?

the trouble with conspiracy theory's is if they involve big numbers someone would expose it.

 

[LesBaker]

I'd have my media types post up a lowlight clip of the most egregious holds that weren't called on the game's best defensive player.

I still LOL at the possibility of them putting a clip together and playing it pre-game on the big screen.

I swear if I owned the Rams I'd do it and worry about the consequences/fine/suspension later.

It would be an historically epic burn that would be talked about for eternity.