Week three of the NFL season has been and gone, leaving in its wake a trail of destruction and angry head coaches. After two weeks of adequate, and I use that term loosely, refereeing the replacement officials self-destructed spectacularly over the course of the weekend. Of course, the highlight of a bad weekend of officiating was the final play on Monday Night Football where the Green Bay Packers were robbed of a victory thanks to that inexplicable "simultaneous possession" call on a Russell Wilson hail mary pass for Seattle. The Packers had every right to feel slighted in this instance by the replacements, but really it isn't the officials fault that they're so bad, it's the NFL's fault for putting them in this ludicrous position. They should never have ended up in this state to begin with, and probably never in a million years expected to be wearing stripes on an NFL field. The NFL and the referees union needs to sort something out soon, hopefully this week, if the league is to regain any credibility and stop this season dissolving into a farce. It's already possible after just three weeks that a team such as the Packers could miss the play-offs because of a bad call, and after another week of terrible decisions the entire season could end up needing an asterisk placed beside it. After all the commotion over the players lockout before last season you'd have thought Roger Goodell might have learnt his lesson, he obviously hasn't and his term as commissioner could ultimately be remembered for poor negotiating skills and lockouts as opposed to the highest ratings the league has ever seen and the International Series games he has seen played in London over the past five years.
I won't be reviewing last weeks action this time as it's Wednesday already, and coupled with the fact that I wasn't able to view many games it would be a fruitless exercise. I will however be back in the next couple of days with a preview for this weekends action, and some more thoughts on the latest news around the league
No comments:
Post a Comment