Quote:
Originally Posted by gold_and_red
I don't believe refs deliberately steer games towards a planned outcome. It is too easy to spill the beans (after retirement) and bring down the NFL. The real issues are
- Game play is just too fast even for a trained eye to catch every detail, no way I am trusting a group of humans to make split second decisions with any consistency
- Rules are highly subject to interpretation
- Defensive penalties resulting in spot fouls or automatic first downs making it too easy to sustain scoring drives, all it takes is one untimely flag
- Timing of the flag for e.g. start of 3rd quarter vs last two minutes
- Plain incompetence aka Jeff Triplette
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This is where I'm landing in terms of solutions.
1. I don't think there's a big criminal conspiracy. It's too hard to pull off (though I have no doubt that individual players have thrown games - it's statistically a certainty). That's beyond my power to fix and beyond my optimism to think about, so I'll ignore it.
2. I do think there are occasional "business decisions" being made that impact games. I doubt that Roger is telling refs to make the Patriots or Rams or Broncos win, but it would be naive to assume that there's not the occasional wink and nod saying, "It would sure be nice to have a competitive game tonight." If the refs keep a game competitive, then the outcome can swing. I also think there's a leaguewide philosophy of ramping up scoring that likely infiltrates to game management. I hate it, but I think it happens and I can't do anything about it, so I'll sigh and ignore it.
3. It's impossible that there's not some star blindness. We all know that Tom Brady gets calls that Matt Cassel or Tyrod Taylor won't. That's human error, and it sends the lesson that your team needs to find a Tom Brady. Whatever. We can fix that by drafting Patrick Mahomes II and Tyreek Hill.
Those things can't be fixed, and that brings me to gold_and_red's good point.
The game is now too complex to be managed by humans in real time. It's not unreasonable to assume that the NFL is hiring the most qualified officiating crews that are possible, and they're still a negative story far too often. We don't see problems like this in baseball, so why in football? The reason is the complexity of the game and the rulebook. Even if the officials are calling it to the best of their ability and in the most fair manner, the subjective nature of many of the game's rules are going to cause inconsistencies. Some of those will impact the course of the game and others won't, but either way, it presents a very negative picture. The optics are bad. If your team loses and you blame the refs, you can probably make a pretty good argument for it.
The NFL has to simplify the rulebook somehow and convert subjective penalties to objective ones. And they have to convert subjective calls like catches and control of the ball to objective calls. They have to reduce the number of penalties so fans can cheer a good play instead of waiting five seconds to check for flags. The officiating controls the ebb and flow of games now more than the players do, and that's got to stop.