This is the latest and most serious call in a series of terrible calls from replacement referees. These are small college and public school referees. The best college referees have jobs to do: calling the best college teams' games correctly. The real NFL referees are in a labor dispute with the NFL. They want higher pay for the work the NFL wants them to do, they want to keep their current pension plan, and they want better job security This Bleacher Report article breaks down what the referees want. In the article, Schottey states, "The actual dollar-and-cents difference between the NFL and its officials is a problem smaller than both sides would admit." LA Times writer Bill Plaschke says in this article, "When you crunch the numbers, if the NFL gave the locked-out referees everything they wanted, it would cost about $100,000 extra per team per season. That equals about four games' pay for one of a team's lowest-paid players." He doesn't give his source on that and I don't know where to find the "numbers" he is talking about, but it's probably accurate.
These are just some of the tweets that were posted last night (taken from this ESPN story):
These tweets are from professional players of all sports, including other football players who are impacted both positively and negatively by the outcome of this game! To be honest, my favorite tweet isn't included in this list. It's since been removed from Twitter, but it was from Wisconsin Senator Jon Erpenbach and gave Roger Goodell's phone number. Goodell is the NFL commissioner. Green Bay linebacker Clay Matthews also posted Goodell's number on his Facebook page. Had I been awake at this point, I would have loved to join the thousands of people who called him.
Last night's call was absolutely inexcusable. We need to get the real refs back! These inexperienced officials are ruining the season and the NFL is going to lose credibility if this keeps going. I know I already feel like the wins this season are worth less than they were last season. Sure, Seattle is now 2-1 but so what? They won because of a mistake, not because they were the better team. It's a couple million dollars: pocket change for the NFL. So come on, Mr. Goodell: do what it takes to get our Monday (and Thursday and Sunday) Night Football back to normal!
"Be the change you wish to see in the world." --Gandhi
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