this is amazing

The last proposal by the refs union was a total $30m package annually (everything included) for the 121 refs, pretty sure that was on PFR. That's certainly a lot of money in an absolute sense and as far as a per-game basis compared to other officials in other sports, but still seems pretty small compared to what the NFL is worth.

In a perfect world the refs will get the money, and the league will get more refs and be able to introduce a little more accountability.

It's 2012. They should have things like GPS-type tracking sensors in the ball and computer-aided this and that. Instant replay and reviews should be awesome by now.

Each side is trying to get whatever they can, as in any labor/management negotiation. Therefore, the "greed" can be assigned to both sides. The refs have just as much ability to end the impasse as the league does.

At any rate, they'll eventually come to an agreement, and this will all be quickly forgotten. The league and the players survived the lockout from a year ago just fine. Or for that matter the players' strike from the 80s, where people swore up and down the game was permanently damaged and they were never going to watch the NFL again. That sentiment lasted about a week.

As there is no public safety issue, I don't see what all the fuss is about anyway. It's not like firefighters or air traffic controllers are being locked out. I think we'll probably be ok.

Also worth noting: The league confirmed today that 1. possession on an endzone play is reviewable and 2. the replay official (who is *not* a replacement ref) determined that there was not enough evidence to overturn the simultaneous catch ruling.

Replacement ref who called touchdown last night was considered not ready for Division I college football

lol @ all of you variance averse pussies

Definitely tilting that it takes some 65 year old ref 10 minutes to jog over to the eight inch replay screen. Even the lolNHL managed to get it right by now.

NFL won't bear the costs... the fans will

NFL actually standing up for your pocketbook and trying to improve quality

notice, however, that the official on the left is not surprised or taken aback by the TD call at all. He, also, is not giving an interception or touchback signal as is often claimed.

Seems they both agreed it was a tv and announcers/talking heads have been quite disingenuous to characterize it any other way.

After demonstrating that he does not know that "catch" and "control" are two different words, M2TR moves along to AIDS up this thread by demonstrating that he does not understand how monopolies price their products.

Like my point with the replacement refs, if someone shows shocking incompetence with very basic stuff then assuming they are competent at the harder stuff makes you pretty damn stupid yourself.

yeah I'm shocked he didn't take a confident stand, seems very out of character

fair point

but, he doesn't seem negatively surprised

MT2tard going for the record number of ruin threads in a day.

I just find the conclusion that he had no idea/didn't see it properly/doesn't know the rule very well more likely than he thought it was close and could go either way.

monopoly?

They part of the broader entertainment field. They got monopoly on nothing.

They got as much a monopoly as MLB in the 50s

not much else to do while watching the Dodgers fail so the Cards extend their WC lead.... it's slow sports gambooling day

I disagree that it's obvious he was intending to signal TD no matter what.

I'm not going to call you an idiot if you disagree (the evidence isn't that overwhelming) but his hesitation while looking right at the other ref is enough for me to assume he didn't know wtf he was supposed to call.

This all seems like much ado about nothing. You'll all get over it. These things always blow over and people forget within a year or two.

He is doing what refs do when the ball gets picked off in the endzone for a touchback.

See around 8 seconds in:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE49dEiLzWg

Maybe he wasn't going to signal TD no matter what, but I think it's pretty clear that was always his initial intention. I think this still shows it fairly well, his arms are already in a position to signal it as the black ref's arms are only just starting to move:



As for what the black ref was doing, I think it's obvious to everyone except mt2r that he didn't think it was clearly a TD. The signal to the stop the clock is made both when intending to signal a touchback and also when wanting to confer before making a decision.

Exactly. But I don't think you realize the implications of that statement.

Hint: MLB was very much a monopoly, specifically exempted from anti trust laws.

I doubt it. Mistakes on this level don't get forgotten for a long time. The Testaverde helmet touchdown, the Hochuli blown call on the Jay Cutler fumble, and Phil Luckett botching the coin toss on Thanksgiving are things that people readily remember despite having happened many seasons (well, depending on your definition of "many"; in two of those cases, over a decade) ago.

I'm going to bet that this call's going to be remembered for a long long time, especially if the Packers miss the playoffs because of it.