Despite my lack of credibility making a poast on this topic...

This is a real problem. There is absolutely no consistency in the NFL with respect to officiating.

1. Lance Moore in the super bowl: 2 pt conversion counts because "he broke the plane"

2. Calvin Johnson: "that is different because its not a breaking the plane play"

3. Arian Foster: "ORLY"

Not to mention the completely arbitrary and wholly ridiculous 'standard' for roughing the quarterback which blatantly fluctuates depending on who the qb in question is.

Finally, pretty much every game has a call that is "WAT?" See, e.g., the defensive face mask call on the Ravens tonight when the offensive player grabbed and turned the defensive player's face mask.

I don't know what the answer is, but this cannot be ignored any longer.

poasting in epic riverman thread

happens in the NBA too

just some part of life that has to be accepted

itll always be like this

it was funny on espn when dungy was trying to explain why the refs were correct to no call offensive pi on roddy white on that last td. the other guy just said dude it was obv pi.

Did you lose a bet tonight?

And in before 'hire full time refs.' How about at a minimum consistently applying the rules during replay reviews? The current deal is basically 'as long as we werent super obviously wrong the ruling on the field stands.'

Meh, I don't get the outrage over the first two points. Lance Moore caught the ball, hit the ground, bobbled it, regained possession, and then had the ball kicked out of his hands. It wasn't the act of going to the ground which knocked the ball out, it was the subsequent action that knocked the ball out after he had already went to the ground with possession. CJ caught the ball as he was falling, then immediately lost the ball as he tried to brace his fall, which is why it was incompete by rule. I don't really see either of these plays as being all that controversial

The problem is that the NFL used #2 to justify #1, which is loltastic given #3.

Jenkins caught the ball.

The explanation for the Lance Moore thing isn't that he "broke the plane," but that by re-gripping the ball and extended the ball over the goal line he completed the catch and became a runner. That is, as soon as he began to extend the ball over the goalline he was a runner. TD.

The Arian Foster call was wrong.

Obviously not, he would have started a new account

As long as the reffing continues to rog in the Steelers' direction, I see no problems.

saverio rocca GOAT

Please just make this the containment thread for Riverman's whining about the refs and get that out of the other threads.

I was at the game so I didn't get a very good look (only the replays on the jumbotron) but the reffing of the Finneran punt return fumble and Atlanta recovery sure seemed bizarre. There didn't appear to be any ruling on the field whatsoever. Then they said the penalty was declined, because Atlanta recovered the ball. Nice slowroll for the Ravens fans though.

i like it because its something to lol at and you never know what is going to happen or what new rules will pop up week to week.

its still not as bad as the nba

Numbers one and two have nothing to do with the reffing. The refs got both plays right. The refs job is to enforce the rules no matter how awful they are.

Too many young refs in my opinion. Everyone knows older = wiser.

As others have said, #1 on your list was definitely the correct call and most people seem to think #2 was now as well. I actually think that #3 was the correct call too since there is definitely contact by the defender and he never regains his balance before reaching to put it into the EZ, meaning he went to ground in the act of making the catch and therefore it's incomplete. The fact that he was already in the EZ doesn't change that since he never had full control of his body before going to ground. (I actually think CJ's was much less clear cut than Foster's personally).

Whether or not the rule is stupid is another matter and personally I think it's unnecessary but the refs actually got all those right imo.

As for the general point, there have definitely been some pretty bad calls the last few weeks but I haven't actually seen one that I think is particularly likely to have been different with better refs. In each case the call was either very marginal (like the hit on Collie) or the ref was simply in a position where he couldn't see everything (like the facemask last night - the flag came from a direction where he wouldn't have been able to see Suggs's facemask but could see Snelling's).

There are bad referring decisions in every sport in the world and whilst the last few weeks has seen a pretty high concentration of bad calls in the NFL it's something that can't really be avoided without going to replays for every marginal decision, which I'm pretty sure most people would be against.

there was a play in the eagles/colts game where a colts receiver caught the ball falling out of bounds and appeared to lose it while on the ground. ruled a catch and never even questioned.

riverman: show me evidence that there's bias in roughing the passer calls. i'd be curious about roughing the passer calls per 100 dropbacks. i wouldn't be surprised if guys who run the football a lot or hold on to it for a long time tend to get less calls, but i also imagine there's a huge amount of variance involved.

Like phantom holding and random illegal contact is pretty understandable because those are hard things to see all the time and they are judgement calls. Even the face mask ******** last night was I guess tolerable because it was just a case of the guy not being in great position.

What is so annoying is the inconsistency. Rapistberger clearly fumbles into the end zone, the Dolphins clearly recover, and you **** it up. Arian Foster has the ball, crosses the plane, takes another step in the end zone, touches the ground with the ball and its not a touchdown? Wat? These are not isolated examples.

I didn't see the Foster one live but after watching the replay a bunch of times it's a super obvious incomplete pass given the rule as it is. He at no point has the ball and is balanced and as such he goes to the ground as part of the catch (he's actually specifically using the hand with the ball holding it to stop himself falling over). Since that is the case he has to maintain possession when he goes to the ground and he obviously doesn't. Just because it's in the endzone doesn't change what constitutes making a catch.

I agree with the fumble in the Steelers/Dolphins game though, that was pretty bad.

Except that the NFL even eventually said the Foster thing was a TD:

http://www.nflgridirongab.com/2010/1...en-ruled-a-td/

Wow I completely disagree with that (yeah I know it's a little silly disagreeing with the NFL over their own rule). Hell Pereira actually says "Foster was on his way to the ground" and he certainly hadn't made a football move before this was the case. If you're on the way to the ground whilst making a catch you have to maintain possession when you hit the ground. He might have been making a "second act" but he also hadn't completed the first act and reaching for the end zone wasn't what caused him to go to ground.

It baffles me that the NFL would say that should have been a TD, I honestly can't comprehend how that wouldn't be incomplete given the rule as it is.