Falcons: The safety that magically was taken away

[juraitwaluzka]

(12-28-2011 06:58 PM)AsylumGuido Wrote:  I watch between eight to ten NFL games every week. Yes, the officiating is puzzling at times. I believe the main reason is that the rules have become so convoluted. But, what I refuse to buy into is that any one team is getting a break from officials. That is a total crock. I visit forums like this all across the league. In every single one of them the losing team's fans ALWAYS claims the other team was given preferential treatment by the refs.

If you check out the Saints sites you see that most fans there felt like it was about time they got some breaks because most feel that other teams were getting them all.

As fans we are all as myopic as can be. Everything in our way of thinking is biased when it comes to our teams. I'll admit that the Saints seemed to have the majority of the big calls go their way on Monday. But, it had nothing to do with any conspiracy nor did it have any affect on the outcome of the game.

Once again, as fans, we tend to always favor our team. Holding is a perfect example. It happens on every single play. Some teams are better coached to get away with it, but it ALWAYS occurs. When you are watching your defense you can see multiple camera angles and in at least one of them you will see your player being held. You get angry that it almost never gets called. The fact is that when your team is on offense your attention is on the player with the ball, not the opposing team's defensive players. The fact is that those same camera angles are showing holding there, as well.

I refuse to give any undue credence to officiating threads because they are tainted by our own fanaticism. And to be fair, I feel the exact same way when I see these on Saints forums.

As for the flag being picked up on the play referenced in the thread title, hell if I know what went on because I didn't get the call. To me it was a non-issue and quickly forgotten moments later. I never thought about it again until I stopped by here. I then went out and searched every news source I could find and was not able to dig up any mention of the play as being controversial. If anyone can find any legitimate story about it (not forum threads) I would love to read more about it.

I agree completely with the two parts in bold. I think what we see is that the refs are just largely incompetent. Part of it is that, as you said, the rules have become way too convoluted and subjective and I believe many of the newer "safety" rules lead to even more inequity because things just happen too fast for a human to be able to consistently get correct. The refs are put in a difficult position, in a way they are set up to fail. The NFL does not care enough about good officiating to do anything about it. They have technology at their disposal that they refuse to use and they won't even make the refs a full time job, instead we get part timers. Unlike MLB with a minor league system, there is no clear path to the top and no one chomping at your heels to replace you, instead it's more like a good old boys country club, there is no accountability etc... Bottom line, they care more about the refs feelings than they do the integrity of the game. On top of that when you have been lead by head douchebag and now ref apologist Mike Pereira it only makes it worse. Poor officiating is just a pet peeve of mine, honestly I would rather the Falcons lose in the Superbowl than win it on the last play of a game due to an officiating gift. A ref should have to fight as hard to keep his job as a QB does to keep his, instead we get fed crap about tenure. Pfffft.

As for conspiracies for or against a team, I don't buy it for one simple reason - people by and large absolutely cannot keep their mouth's shut. If this was anything that was orchestrated, it would require a relatively large number of people involved and you can bet it would be leaked, there is no way short of holding people's families hostage that this could be kept under wraps, and even that might not be enough. That does not mean that individual refs don't have certain biases, I'm sure that they do, they are human and some I'm sure are arrogant pricks, but with no accountability for performance there is little incentive for them to change and very little chance for them to be replaced.

As for the non safety call, no one in the media has mentioned it because it had no real bearing on the game so no one cares. That doesn't mean that it's not filled with ineptitude. Nobody can cite the rule that they used because there isn't one. I don't think they were looking for ways to not give Atlanta 2 points, they were just dumbasses.