I was listening to something and they were ranting big time on how disgustingly bad the officiating has gotten in the NFL. It got me thinking, is the officiating getting worse or are fans given a more vocal voice (e.g. Social Media) and maybe getting more educated on what the rules are in the NFL?

I've watched games with people who are not familiar with the rules at all. And some who think they know all the rules. It's an interesting question.

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Fans have complained about the refs since the beginning. What makes it worse is the cameras pick up every mistake. They have former refs sitting in a studio acting like they invented the game. There are team challenges. Video reviews. Worst of all the layer upon layer of new rules. Some seemingly contradict other rules.
Over the years GB has benefited by calls/non calls. But they have been hurt by even more. (A year or two ago some podcaster went back and looked at the then last 5 years.)
It may well be time for the "sky official" to weigh in. Not every play but on egregious mistakes by the ground crew. That in itself is open to deliberation. Just as MLB may need to go to the robo ump calling balls and strikes the technology is here. The leagues are multi billion dollar organizations. I don't understand why they continue to put out a substandard product when they can improve it.

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If I was an NFL rules honcho in this day and age, I would instruct the officials to err on the side of keeping the flag in the pocket, with further instruction to warn players that were pushing on the rules.

The worst games I have seen involve referees calling a tight game.

Perhaps some combination of college and pro system is warranted. The college system attempt so rectify the semi-obvious screw-ups without having to overly involve coaches.

Dfosterf commented..

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I think that the massive amount of gambling is also contributing to the fan interest in the officials and game calling as most sports have had some sort of corruption scandal. Hate to be a conspiracy guy, but man it is hard not to think that Vegas is influencing the games at times.

What disappoints me is with all these questionable calls is we often end of talking more about the zebras than the players/coaching.

Feel bad for a guy like EQ who is at risk of being cut once MVS comes back who finally makes a nice play for it to be reversed on a terrible call. I also think that Amos made the INT, but with all the cameras in the building they don't seem to have one on the back of the endzone for some reason.

We are fortunate that shitty officiating didn't cost the game - but with a decently called game, I think we win by 17+.

Not sure if they have it out for us, or we have just been on the bad end of it - but after 2 horribly officiated games for us this year I can't help but wonder.

The SF game was just as bad, maybe worse. The refs literally saved SF from a blowout and nearly gave them the win. After these blunders - no discipline, no league apologies... just "Oh well, you have to outplay the shit calls." It's hard to watch these clowns destroy a game we all love, AND the league allows it to continue.

And yet fans from other teams think the refs cost them games.

Here's a long rant from a delusional bares fan. Poor poppet.

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I think officiating is getting better, because refs know they're being watched and graded closer, where back in the day, the film wouldn't be good enough to tell the ref is wrong or not.

Now the video clearly shows it, so they've had to improve, the problem is technology has improved a hell of a lot, for fans to watch and review, and NFL has rejected adding most of that same technology to help the refs.

Instead Goodell and the head refs have decided to make the rules more vague, so the refs interpretation of said rules can be more vague, and the NFL can blindly back up the refs as the NFL under Goodell cares more about the PR of the game than the actual quality of the game.

And now, I'm pretty sure we saw evidence where the Refs aren't following the official rule book... as they overturned the St. Brown non-TD to be a TD extremely late... no ref on the field is doing that... that was probably the sky ref illegally talking with the refs on the field.

Just like the Refs started changing how they were calling the catch rule, the year before the catch rule officially changed.

So the NFL is now saying they're the official rule book, not what's actually written in the rule book.


Remember the fail mary play? The ref claimed the NFL that under no circumstances are they to call a penalties on the last seconds of a game... at the end of the game, just let players play...

Then in the NFC game Saints vs Rams... Saints get screwed when Rams player out right tackles Saints WR clearly before the ball is there and right in front of the ref... why? Ref is listening to the NFL and not calling penalties right before the end of the game.


It's hard for me to blame the actual on field refs... they generally seem to be doing the stupid shit their boss is tell them to do... sometimes your boss tells you to do stupid shit and you got to do it.

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