The End
I love the Seattle Seahawks. But they just won the worst refereed game in the history of the National Football League. After bogus call after bogus call, affecting both teams equally for most of the game, the final blow against the NFL lockout has just happened.
In a last second pass, Seattle QB Russell Wilson threw a pass that was “caught” by Golden Tate. By “caught” I mean the ball was obviously intercepted. But the refs called it for Seattle, end of game. Green Bay just lost a game because of scab referee incompetence.
This is a complete joke. Laughable. I know I thought the NFL wouldn’t let it get this far. And some have repeatedly pointed out I was wrong, even trying to say the scab refs weren’t that bad. And so who knows, the NFL leadership is so ideologically committed to not paying the referees a pension, that they could let their product go to complete shit. But this has gone way, way too far. This is now the story of the NFL season. If the Packers don’t get home field advantage in the playoffs, if they get a wildcard instead of a division championship, if they don’t make the playoffs by a game, the referees just cost the Packers.
PC: Check out this still frame of the “game winning touchdown catch.”
that was awesome.
I’m with you. Professional sports is seldom interesting to me anymore. I need something like this to get my interest. Fucking hilarious.
Yes. At least when the Hawks were jobbed out of a Super Bowl, it was done by professionals.
But truly awful refereeing…joke level. The commentators were really down on the refs. I posit what it will take to end this farce is more media darlings (Green Bay, Dallas, New England, et al) getting their asses handed to them by the scabs.
You left out a “not” in your post. Check it out.
New England’s recent loss to the Ravens was equally due to bad calls. There just wasn’t such a glorious, crowning, bad call to top off the game.
That was ludicrous.
Most of that game was unwatchable. Most of the late game yesterday was unwatchable.
Look, IANAE (I am not an economist), but if your LABOR is not IMMEDIATELY REPLACEABLE then management’s hand is forced.
I can’t believe it has come this far. That was clearly the wrong call, and everyone knows it (except Russel W., who was “sure” it was a TD because he “felt” it).
This is ruining their product for me. Fuck.
I will not watch another NFL game until the scabs are off the field. I am done.
I gotta think that’s the end of this. Folks arguing is one thing. Laughing is another matter altogether.
I am trying and failing to figure out how to contact the commissioner’s office. I’m sure they’re flooded with angry emails already, but I don’t care.
I am about *this* close to where you are, Erik. Fuck!
Why watch such a clearly inferior product? I have a lot of other things I can do with my time.
I may have to more or less at random select a college team to root for and run errands on Sundays instead of Saturdays.
I would hate that.
It’s not just that the product’s inferior, it’s that the league (read: commissioner’s office) clearly has so little regard for the game, fans, integrity, history, player safety, and long-time refs it’s like being told “no, fuck YOU” by Roger Goodell.
Repeatedly.
I am hopeful but not really optimistic that this incident (well, like I said, really two entire prime-time games in a row) will spell the end of this fucking farce.
I recommend Oregon.
Of course you do.
…
The saddest thing?
After the game I immediately went to my office and logged on to LGM.
The service academies run the funnest offenses.
“Why watch an inferior product?” doesn’t lead one to watch the college game, which is massively inferior in quality of play (and has its own issues regarding unpaid players).
But the college game is great (outside of the unpaid labor issue) on its own terms. No, the players aren’t as skilled, but it’s a different issue.
Apologist. Now I shall have to invoke the Green Lantern theory of football…if only I can figure one out.
PS: The league is not “ideologically committed to paying the referees a pension.” After tonight they might be financially forced to do so, however. The blowback could be a stunning. We can only hope.
There’s a “not” missing in that quote of mine there. Kind of a key one too…..
I feel the same way about minor-league baseball, without the brain injuries and chronic joint problems.
This is objectively true (in my subjective opinion).
Baseball playoffs?
He doesn’t tweet much, but his twitter is @nflcommish
crap. Clay Mathews did this
http://www.facebook.com/50ShadesOfClay/posts/463066213715942
Wisconsin State Senator Jon Erpenbach tweeted NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s office phone number after the replacement officials mishandled the final play of the game.
Here’s that tweet:
You can leave a message for nfl commish roger goodell at 212 450 2027
attaboy, erik! after the discussion last week, i decided i wasn’t going to write anything further in these discussions since i was clearly the only person who felt that the games imply should not be watched regardless of whether i was a nielsen household or not.
so good for you for coming to the right conclusion: scabs suck, scab refs suck, games reffed by scabs suck, and there’s no reason to watch until legitimate refs are back on the field.
I hate to utter one of the most depressing sentences in American labor history, but it’s apparently necessary: if you believe that that’s true, then you’re missing the point of naming an airport after Ronald Reagan.
I don’t get it.
As of last season, every TD is reviewed upstairs. Right?
So what happened tonight?
The play was reviewed, and the play stood as called (not enough evidence).
One of the two officials on the scene signaled for an interception before the other official signaled touchdown.
Right you are. I found out a few minutes ago from the NFL channel that it was, indeed, reviewed. And that is unbelievable. WTF were the replay officials looking at?
By NFL rules, the only thing that’s reviewable is WHETHER the ball was caught, not WHO caught it.
So the only way the refs could have reversed the call is to declare that the pass was incomplete—which is obviously false, even more false than the call of touchdown (though it would have kept the right team winning the game).
Yah, crazy rule. But why did the ref who couldn’t even see the play call a TD? And why did the white hat go with that?
Either staggering incompetence, or bribery/chicanery … or a combination, I suppose.
That is just an unbelievably stupid rule. Is there any justification for it?
If you don’t understand the rule in the first place, reviewing the play would not seem to help.
They made the wrong call. A Green Bay defender fairly clearly intercepted a hail mary pass in the endzone, but a Seahawk receiver had an arm in there that obscured things a bit.
On the slow-mo replay review, there’s no earthly reason to award the touchdown to the Seahawks.
Both a touchdown and an interception was called on the field. After they talked it over for a few seconds they decided on a touchdown. The head ref went to the little booth thing for the slow-mo replay review. And made the wrong call.
This is on top of a general level of bullshitty calls and like five straight bullshit calls on Seattle’s penultimate drive.
They can’t overrule that call. Why, I have no idea, but letting it stand was actually right by the rules although the call itself was ridiculous.
I agree the correct use of review is that they can’t overrule the call.
But to say that lets the refs off the hook for what the replay clearly shows to be true assumes the refs weren’t looking at whether Green Bay or Seattle caught the ball during the review, right, and applied a correct interpretation to what they could and could not review?
I think there’s enough evidence to claim that’s an implausible assumption.
The NFL had a problem with insanely-written rules before it hired the dudes who were doing St. Norbert’s vs. Michigan Tech games to enforce them.
Oh dear lord, yes. In a way I think that’s 95% of the reason people hated the real refs, because they got stuck (correctly) enforcing the stupid rules like the tuck rule or the “any touching of the QB’s head is a 15 yard penalty” rule.
Having looked at the rulebook, I see no evidence supporting the claim that a simultaneous catch is non-reviewable. So if this is what the ESPN folks are saying, I’d like them to point to the actual rule. Here’s what I found:
First, regarding the issue of a “simultaneous catch,” the rule is that if one player established control before the other started also getting his hands on the ball, then it is not a simultaneous catch; the first player made the catch. So the original call was erroneous.
As for reviewable plays, here’s what I found:
I don’t see anything here about simultaneous catches being non-reviewable.
The refs haven’t been following the ‘rules’ all season. If it was clearly an interception on review, they should have overturned the call on the field. Not doing so based on the assumption that you know what the rule is simply adds unwarranted arrogance and stupidity to ignorance and incompentence.
For the real refs, not overturning a bad on the field call would be the correct decision. Not for these guys.
Scott Walker, how do you feel about unions now?
The goggle-eyed homunculus really doesn’t strike me as a football kinda guy. Squash, maybe, or yachting perhaps.
He’s got a motorcycle. (Something tells me that he cried during Wild Hogs.)
Walker goes by that old saying, “When that One Great Scorer marks against your name, he marks not whether you won or lost, but how much money you made.”
There is a crisis in American refereeing and the owners know something has to be done. Breaking the union was a good start. These new refs are obviously just as good as the old ones, but they are not trying their best incentive system is skewed. Probably at the end of the season they should be graded by an online poll on ESPN.com, and then the ones who get the highest grades get a bonus, and the bottom 10% get replaced by new employees from a temp agency.
Harrumph!
indeedy.
Good, but needs a reference to standards, accountability, or whatever the buzzword for high-stakes testing is, and perhaps Charter Stadiums.
Value-added, too.
Online polls aren’t scientific, but standardized tests designed by for-profit companies would be dandy. No Ref Left Behind.
Good point. I also hear you’re gonna appoint the director of Americans Elect to a prominent position in your organization. Makes sense since Americans Elect changed the face of American democracy forever in a way not even rivaled by FDR or Lincoln.
+100.
it appears one of the officials got it right. sweet jeebus, these refs are frakking clowns. will this be the end of it? gruden looks like he’s gonna lose it on espn now.
The guy that called it a TD was also the one that was looking right at Tate when he pushed 37 of the Packers so obviously
7th grade football is the true test of an officiating crew. if they’re good enough for middle school, they’re good enough for the pros.
You know if the Pack had real owners they wouldn’t have gotten screwed so badly
Al Davis was a real owner, and would have likely disagreed.
Yeah, but he was famously disagreeable
As a Lions fan, I can’t say that I feel badly about a Packers loss, but I’d prefer said loss to be in a game regulated by competent personnel.
As another Lions fan, I feel badly that the refs screwed up a spot on a third down running play by the Lions in OT which, if it had been marked correctly, would have resulted in a first down and thus avoided the disastrous game-ending 4th down play.
If the Packers miss the playoffs because of this, it could cost many players on that squad a lot of money (since contracts in the NFL are incentive laden, and postseason appearances are often one of them).
Another shit-eating moment for the NFL. Trouble is they think their shit tastes like fine caviar.
These rich dumbfucks don’t understand that the entire media apparatus is primed for ‘what fuck-up will the scab refs do this game?’ now. The only way to stop it is to bring back the old refs at whatever terms they want.
I don’t know if they will. These are some extremely wealthy and stupid people.
In week 1 the press was fawning over the great job the scabs were doing. In week 2 they were kind but expressing mild puzzlement at some movies.
Now all gloves are off. Everyone is killing the refs and the NFL. I just heard Scott Van Pelt practically begging the NFL to get the regular guys back. SCOTT VAN PELT.
I know we are talking about a bunch of MOTUs who aren’t used to this, but they have lost this battle decisively. The question is how long will it take before they realize it.
When puppet media like ESPN is begging the NFL to bring the old refs back, you know they have a problem. The owners desperately need to buy themselves some good media coverage. I fully expect them to call the refs’ union this week and offer them an extremely mild concession on their current horrible offer. This will be rejected and the NFL will wave it around for all their anti-union friends in sports media to jaw about for a couple days.
Or the NFL can start threatening their broadcast partners and double down on fines for criticizing refs.
Hell, even NFL.com and the NFL network are screaming about the Refs.
But the NFL desperately needs that $3.3 million dollars they are trying to take from the refs.
Dare we to hope that some of the scab referees are sabotaging it now? They’ve had their fun, they’ve gotten to play NFL referee, but maybe they’ve realized enough is enough?
Doubtful. A scab gets enough hassle as it is by doing the best job that a scab can do. Nobody’s going to give a scab any credit for screwing things up royally. NO-body.
It’s my hope that some of the scabs are involved in gambling, a stain that not even the vaunted NFL could easily scrub out quickly.
Unfortunately, investigative reporting in sports is even more lackluster that its current moribund state in the rest of society. The only hope would be some sort of federal investigation stumbling upon it.
Yahoo Sports is a real bright spot there.
Er, that raises the disturbing thought ( and it’s just a thought) that a scab would be much more vulnerable to outside incentives to throw a game. Wait, who am I kidding? No bettor could be dumb enough to put money on these games…they’re ungambleable.
Right–what idiot would gamble on these games?
One thing that really strikes me:
If you’re gambling, you *really* have to weight the home team.
if the roles were reversed and GB got the “win” there would have been riots/murders etc.
I guess that explains why the Vikings were only 7-point underdogs to the 49ers on Sunday. Of course, the scabficials in that game did everything they could to avoid Jim Harbaugh’s abuse, but the home team covered anyway.
How can you not love the Seahawks? They just ended the lockout.
+1 if you’re right.
We have been double parking our limos at latte bars in Laurelhurst for weeks planning this caper. Obviously, now is the time for some really old single malt Scotch.
Tom Crabtree, ladies and gentlemen.
Heh. Most of the people responding didn’t even get the joke of making it 13th instead of 12th.
Hah! Listening to the Seahawks postgame, and Pete Carrol regarding the lockout “It’s time for this to be over”. Even the winning coaches know this is BS.
Chuckie, Tirico, Scott Van Pelt, Stuart Scott
This shit’s done
LOL, I may *start* to watch the NFL.
I wonder. If the NHL was crazy enough to cancel an entire season (and may well do so again), why wouldn’t the NFL owners be just as mulish and ride this mess right to the bottom of the canyon? They played with replacement players most of one season, didn’t they? Probably didn’t even put asterisks in the records that year…
It was only three games, and the union essentially busted. Fucking Joe Montana and many others crossed the picket line and played with the scabs. The real referees won’t cave so easily. They have other sources of income.
Hawks fan here……
wow.
Well, if there has to be an unacceptable clusterfuck, why not come out on the better end of it?
Man, Wilson seriously blew. Matt Flynn must be a corpse not to provide anything better.
Because next time, Seattle will come out on the worse end.
Not arguing that this should have happened, or was acceptable. One might even call it unacceptable.
If this one situation DIDN’T happen, though, would it be better for shitty refs to be covering every single OTHER game for the rest of the season?
Still doesn’t make up for the superbowl against the steelers…
I’d love to wake up tomorrow and read that this is settled, but I suspect it won’t end unless or until teams — players and coaches — stop showing up for games. Yes, the NFL has disgraced itself even more than seemed possible from this episode, but the 32 Rmoneys who own the teams (and even the Packers have executives) clearly have higher priorities. Mere commoners (like part-time officials) will no longer have pensions. That is Law for the Elite.
Well, it would be interesting to re-examine the anti-trust exemption for the NFL in the light of how they are wielding their Trust power against the referees at the moment.
Why would anti-trust law apply at all?
While the ultimate play was certainly misscalled, there were so many bad and missed calls on both sides that I really dont think you can say the refs handed green bay the game. Had calls earlier been made correctly, that last play would never have mattered.
In any case, i hope the refs actually INCREASE their demands after this debacle.
Fuck and yes.
Until a player has both feet down, there is no catch. And when both players in this instance did have their feet down, there was simultaneous control. Tie goes to the offense. The picture posted was taken long after that magic moment occurred.
But for those who care to, it is a good opportunity to impinge the league over the ref situation. added points if it’s a SEA who does so?
As Stuart Scott explained patiently and at length after the game, if one player gets to the ball first, any notion of “tie goes to the offense” does not apply. “Tie goes to the offense” applies only when the players get to the ball at the same time. And it was clear that the Green Bay player got to the ball first.
Right. Indisputable, even if unreviewable. Change that rule!
There’s not even any tie, is there? The ball is in the defender’s chest with his arms wrapped around it. The receiver has his arms draped over the defender’s arms.
That ain’t no tie where I come from.
Jennings caught the ball; Tate caught Jennings; since the greater includes the lesser, Tate caught the ball! QED mothafuckas!
At least the scabs are familiar with set theory.
That’s the other consideration. It’s my ball if I snatch the ball out of midair, but if you rip the ball out of my hands, it becomes your ball. But you have to rip the ball out of my hands for it to be your ball. Clapping your hands around a ball that I possess might make it your ball in basketball but not in football. In football, a tie means exactly that: both players get four hands on the football at the exact same time.
there was simultaneous control
No, there was not.
What the play lacked in simultaneous control it made up for in offensive PI.
I’d give a rat’s ass for Green Bay if this were the only call that made a difference. The call on third down when he clearly had his knee down at the three (and remember, that was the call on the field, so it needed “indisputable evidence” to the contrary) resulted in Green Bay’s sole touchdown. Without it, all the Seahawks need there is a field goal.
So, Green Bay fans, fuck you.
What matters is where the ball is, not his knee. Thanks for playing.
No, actually, it’s where the ball is when his knee is down. Not after his knee is down and he stretches his arm.
Meh. As a fan of neither team, GB was getting jobbed the whole game. That call on Shields for PI was literally insane.
That might have been worse than the Ike Taylor call; at least on that one there wasn’t offensive PI…
Just goes to show up that it’s not just the scabs that don’t know what they’re talking about. They ran that replay multiple times and it was pretty clear from certain angles that his knee wasn’t down until his arm was full outstretched. They got that one right. The announcers pointed it out before the refs made the review decision.
Of course this clusterfuck has to mar the beginning of the best season in Texans’ history. Goddammit.
EXACTLY!
The Texans will win the superbowl, but with the most asterisky of asterisks.
As a Seahawks fan, I’d been expecting my team to be on the wrong side of the call that ended the lockout. Being the beneficiary instead kind of sucks.
Still, let’s not ignore the ridiculous PI call that extended the Packers’ TD drive, nor the constant holding that the Packer O-line got away with in the second half.
All in all a masterpiece of incompetence, victimizing both teams and turning the second half into one of the worst displays of football I’ve ever seen. Congrats Goodell: you built this.
The NFL got what it deserved tonight. That my Seahawks were the beneficiaries is just the icing on the cake.
I am actually surprised at how little vitriol I’ve seen directed at the non-scab currently locked-out refs over this.
I 100% expected them to receive all the blame in the sports media and among fans for the inevitable blown calls, blown games, injuries, etc. resulting from the scabs. To see them impugned as “men putting their greed over the good of the game” among other things.
And that’s happened, but not nearly to the extent I thought it would happen.
Meh, vitriol not so much, but there’s definitely no one really standing up for the real refs’ interests, and there’s a lot of McCain-esque “knock off the bullshit” stuff that undercuts them.
OTOH, the PFT comment section is overwhelmingly anti-ref, but I’d probably be worried about myself if I ever agreed with that collective cesspool.
Not that I ever give much credence to Yahoo! sports columnists, but I got a kick out of the rapid head-spinning flip-flop of Dan Wetzel between this condescending apologia
http://yhoo.it/UO6r6D
which was published yesterday, and this angry call-to-arms
http://yhoo.it/Si4g6v
published an hour ago.
I used to like Wetzel — and he has been great on covering college football’s towering bullshit — but more and more it just seems like he’s just into making contrarian arguments for the attention/page views. Perhaps he thinks ESPN will eventually tab him to replace Skip Bayless.
The worst decision in sports since Pacquiao v Bradley…which was reffed by Robert Byrd.
Nice self troll!
Yes, but he apologized for that in 2005.
I am trying, but failing, to suppress a grin at that one, Manju. Nice work.
Thanks for the continued acknowledgments John. While the Pac-Brad Byrd connection is slightly amusing, I haven’t found an opportunity to drop this absolute howler. So, to repay the favor, here it is.
Behold, the worlds most spectacularicious faux pas:
http://www.dominionofnewyork.com/2012/06/27/rangel-triumphs-jeffries-ascends-to-national-politics/#.UGIkAmL-pLK
[...] (typeof(addthis_share) == "undefined"){ addthis_share = [];}After her exclusive comments in the wake of last night’s game, former Washington D.C. Chancellor of Public Schools and [...]
[...] (typeof(addthis_share) == "undefined"){ addthis_share = [];}Excellent point made here by longtime friend of LGM gmack. I took the word of the ESPN analysts that the question of who [...]
Couldn’t happen to a more obnoxious, entitled fan base (well maybe Dallas or New England) but that said, yeah this was terrible. To be fair, the Seahawks would have had alot of calls to bitch about had the outcome been the other way, just none as high-profile as this. Just a shit-show all around.
I hope that the situation gets resolved soon and the union gets all of their demands met. When I find myself agreeing with Collinsworth/Michaels, shit’s gotten outta control.