I believe it's similar to how the citizens vote for the President, but the President holds the power to be impartial for the citizens, so to speak.

The owners collectively elect a commissioner who will best serve the NFL as an impartial authority who will do what's right.


Roger Goodell locked out the referee's, probably on the urge of the owners to save them money.


The commissioner has the authority to correct mistakes. He chose not to and I believe part of his reasoning for not changing the results (aside from a poor precedent) was because it would shine an even more negative light on the replacement refs.

Originally Posted by: Zero2Cool 

And Goodell did not lock out the referee's. the Owners locked them out. Goodell doesn't have that power.

Originally Posted by: PackFanWithTwins 

The owners can't lock out the referee's. They appointed a commissioner to do that for them! It's no different than selecting a CEO or President.

The owners can't change the results of a game, but the commissioner has the authority to do so. They also have owners meetings to change/add rules which needs at least 23 owner votes to pass.

This is NOT absolving the owners of responsibility here. What I've seen from what the owners want, I don't think is wrong. I think the referee's are being greedy because they know how much money the NFL makes.

There's a slice of pie the Owners get and apparently the money the referee's will get is coming out of their pockets. That's why they "voted" (I don't know an actual vote took place) to lockout the referee's. If you want to say that is the owners locking them out, fine, so be it and argue semantics, but bottom line is it was Goodell, the commissioner who did it.

lol the owners ordered the hit ... the commissioner is the hit man! haha

Originally Posted by: Zero2Cool 

Goodell could today, create a perfect set of terms for both the League and the Refs. But unless those two parties agree, it is just ink on paper and worth even less.

Originally Posted by: PackFanWithTwins 

You argue semantics, then you say something like this? lol If they don't agree, how can it be perfect? Duh! 😛 A perfect agreement is a matter of opinion.


I don't know all the details on what the referee's want and what the owners want so I really don't know what good agreement could be established. I did see the referee's want to be paid for the games they've missed which I think is absurd.

Originally Posted by: Zero2Cool 

Not semantics, just a theoretical, to point out, Goodell cannot stop this even though he is the one who gets blamed for not stopping it. He didn't start it even though he is the one who gets the blame. Blaming him is like blaming the negotiator for the Refs.

Personally, I would almost rather go through the year with the guys they have now even though they suck, and get the best of Div1 next year. Only reason they didn't get them for this is because they would not have been guaranteed the season and they had to commit to NCAA.

Originally Posted by: PackFanWithTwins 

I don't understand why they can't get college refs. They can fly high school refs, high school administrators/commissioners, and fired "jamie" league refs in after a Fri. night game. But they can't fly in college refs in after a Sat game. There's no college games on Sunday. There's 100's of college refs in each state/region between BCS, FCS, WAIA, etc.. These guys would have to be better than what is reffing now. I'll bet they would be happy to pick up and extra $5K on Sunday.

Originally Posted by: PackerTraxx