NFL Referee Problem

[FrenchSkin]

Originally Posted by Buffalo Bob

I will take the dissenting opinion and side with the referees. It isn't an easy job. They are on field level, not watching a TV on a couch. There are 7 guys watching 22 men, who often are obstructing their view and moving quickly. Almost every call is subjective, what is holding, what is illegal use of hands, what is pass interference?

As soon as the NFL decided in the mid 70's to make the game more friendly to the offense calling games was no longer cut and dry. Believe it or not holding used to be easy to call, so was pass interference. The rules and their interpretations are constantly changing now. Anyone notice the new onside kick rules? The chances of a successful onside kick recovery is close to nil.Try to put yourselves in the refs shoes. Every year they have to relearn their job top to bottom. That can't be easy. I blame the NFL for the poor officiating, not the zebras.

Being an amateur zebra I also tend to side with them but this year I feel like the volume of flags thrown is way up (I'd like to have the actual stats on that).

Yes it's partly subjective but not to the extent people usually think it is: the rules are so well written that it takes away a big part of that subjectivity. Well at least it should.

And again, you're supposed to not call 100% of what you see but see a 100% of what you call... on some of these defensive holding calls, you're like "man if you actually saw the whole contact there's absolutely no way you could actually think it impacted the play, don't throw your flag if you just saw a glimpse of the sequence"...