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Last Updated: Dec 12, 2008 - 4:54:39 PM |
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Maybe it’s my imagination, or paranoia might be a better word, but it seems to me that football referees, especially in the National Football League, have been taking big time hits this season from the sports media and the everyday fan as well. Not to mention the striped shirt’s depiction in some popular television commercials as dimwitted, dishonest buffoons. I’m sure many of you have seen the Bud Light commercial where the referee tackles a ball carrier after overhearing players comment that whoever makes the next tackle gets the beer. Or the Subway ad featuring a referee who offers to throw an extra penalty marker to make up for an earlier bad call. Or the Buffalo Wild Wings spot that shows referees deliberately fabricating calls designed to lengthen the game so the restaurant’s patrons can continue eating the restaurant’s products.
Are theses types of juvenile stereotypes appropriate? Fox Sports Alex Marvez addressed this issue with NFL vice president of officiating Mike Pereira. “Appropriate?” an appalled Pereira vented inside his office at NFL headquarters, “We’re supposed to be the good guys doing the right thing.” Marvez reports that for Pereira, the attempted humor in the referee depictions and how they reflect on his professions integrity is no laughing matter. The competence of the league’s referees has become a major issue in the first half of the season and, Marvez reports, Pereira admitts that the public’s perception of the league’s officiating has taken a “Ray Lewis-sized hit”.
In an column earlier this fall, I addressed a call made by NFL referee Ed Hochuli that had influenced the outcome of the Denver-San Diego game. The subsequent media attention to Hochuli’s call started an avalanche of second guessing of football official’s rulings at every level of play, especially when replay reviews reveal alleged or imagined errors by the game officials. What I think many of the naysayers of the officials fail to remember is that referees on the field are put at a much stronger disadvantage than even the average fan at home. While every touch of the ball is subject to review and analysis by instant replay when watching a game on TV, the officials working the game are only allowed to see a minuscule portion of the game on replay, when a maximum of only four plays are subject to taped review on a coaches’ challenge. All of us can get almost every call right when reviewed from four differing angles in slow/stop motion. It’s just not that easy during the overwhelming majority of the plays in an average game.
But has the quality of officiating in the NFL really gotten worse this year as many have claimed? “I think the only difference this year to the previous year, which I think everybody thought was good, is that we had a couple high-profile mistakes by a high-profile referee that generated a lot of publicity”, said Pereira who continues to offer strong support for Hochuli. “Anytime you have something like that happen it’s in the news and you have a pile-on effect.”
This weeks question was asked by Colin in rural Poweshiek County. “This is something I have always wondered about, but since I’ve never seen it attempted, I figure it must be illegal. Is there a rule that prohibits a defense player from taking a position under the goal posts during a field goal attempt and then jumping and blocking the kick from crossing the crossbar?”
Yes there is, and just like in basketball is called “goal tending”. NFL rules address what you described as follows....”Goal tending by a defensive player leaping up to deflect a kick as it passes above the crossbar of a goal post is prohibited. The referee shall award three points for an unfair act or, at the choice of the kicking team, a fifteen yard penalty from the previous line of scrimmage.”
Following a game during the four Super Bowl Championship run of the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 1970’s, future Hall of Famer Terry Bradshaw, never reputed to be the thinking man’s quarterback, was asked by a reporter to what he attributed his professional success. “I have two weapons”, Bradshaw was heard to say, “My legs, my arm and my brains.”
Send your questions to ref@eiherald.com or write to P.O. Box 336, Victor, IA, 52347.
© Copyright 2008 by The East Iowa Herald
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