Time for NFL Ref Reform?

cincibuck · #1 (**permalink**) 02-06-2006, 06:22 PM

Just finished watching Tony Rome do about 15 minutes of tap dancing on the heads of the Dan Levy officiating team. sounds like a storm rising in the fan world. Is the NFL going to bring in full time officials? Is this the time the league, probably the best in professional sports at listening to the fan, really looks into ref reform? What would you recommend?

NFBuck · #2 (**permalink**) 02-06-2006, 06:24 PM

I would hope so, this postseason was a disgrace capped of by that debacle last night. No, thats not a shot at the legitimacy of the Steelers win.

sandgk · #3 (**permalink**) 02-06-2006, 06:33 PM

Full-time officials - way past time to have them. The money is there, the need is there.

I also beleive that insisting on full-time professional officials is only part of the solution. The pro game could learn a lot from its "incubator" at the college level in how to run the review process. For one thing, get a back-up crew in a booth upstairs whose only job is to review plays, like some conferences now do in college. Stop the stupidity of costing a coach a time-out for a challenge by placing the responsibility for making a challenge on the booth officials. In other words, get the red hankies out of the coaches pockets for good by making all plays reviewed in real time.

(Notably, LIVoyd wanted the contrary after the Sun Belt crew couldn't get reviews done smoothly, which caused him to burn TO's at the Alamo Bowl - though I take that to mean you need competent people in the booth. LIVoyd's solution of giving college coaches a red hanky challenge "just like the pros" is a symptomatic cure, but shoot consider the source.)

IronBuckI · #4 (**permalink**) 02-06-2006, 06:43 PM

First of all. Don't do an all-star team of officials for the Super Bowl. Put the best officiating team in the Super Bowl, that way you have guys that know each other's assignments, and they're calling the game like they've called games all year. If you want to reward individual officials, then send the "all-star" officials to the Pro Bowl.

As for the overall problem recently. Officiating has gotten worse, because the game is so much faster, and the amount of time that officials have to be doing high school, or college games hasn't. By the time an official has enough experience to qualify to be an NFL official he's only got a couple of years before his own reflexes and reaction time aren't fast enough to keep up with the speed of the game. A lot of these plays happen so fast, that the officials just aren't seeing what's happening. Then they have to ask for help from someone that wasn't in position to even make the call. Make the amount of time that they spend doing the lower level stuff shorter, and put them on a shorter leash once they get to the NFL level. That way you get the guys that can do the job into the upper levels faster, but they don't feel as comfortable, or get lazy, once they get there.

The Indianapolis game was the worst case for this year's playoffs, but didn't really have anything to do with a ref that was rusty from that not being his full-time job. The interception that wasn't, was simply the leader of the officiating crew not knowing what the rules were, or he was paid to conveniently forget them for a little while. Full time or not, they need to get some guys that know the rules, and can actually see what's going on. Another thing that may help would be for the NFL to implement a Big Ten style of replay system. The throwing of the flag is a ridiculous way to challenge a call. Maybe you leave the red flag in the coaches pocket, so they don't have to call timeouts to get a review, but making it the sole purpose for reviewing a call is the wrong way to go.

tibor75 · #5 (**permalink**) 02-06-2006, 06:48 PM

I really doubt the game on the pro level is much faster now than the 70s or 80s. Lynn Swann, Bob Hayes, etc. were pretty damn fast.

IronBuckI · #6 (**permalink**) 02-06-2006, 07:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tibor75

I really doubt the game on the pro level is much faster now than the 70s or 80s. Lynn Swann, Bob Hayes, etc. were pretty damn fast.

Yes, take the two fastest from then, and match them up against the two fastest now, and they're probably pretty even. Take the average of all the players then, and all of them now, then the difference is pretty big. Especially with big guys.