"All-star" officiating crew for Rams-Chiefs game

[Eleazar]

NFL ups intensity with all-star officials for Rams-Chiefs game

Kevin Seifert
ESPN.com NFL Nation



The NFL took the unusual step this week of assigning an "all-star" officiating crew to the most highly anticipated game of the season, adding to the playofflike frenzy for Monday night's matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Los Angeles Rams.

Referee Clete Blakeman will work the game with only two members of his regular crew, umpire Ramon George and down judge Dana McKenzie. The other five officials -- including Jim Lapetina, who will handle replay -- were plucked from four other crews.

The approach is similar to how the NFL assigns officials to playoff games, a process that is based on performance and seniority rather than crew. But it is rarely, if ever, employed before the postseason. Officials typically work on the same eight-person crews throughout the regular season to maximize continuity and familiarity among members.

Individual crew members are occasionally juggled for health or scheduling reasons. But a series of actions this season have indicated the league is moving away from the consistent crew concept, in favor of a more aggressive administration of officiating. Earlier this season, the league bounced down judge Hugo Cruz among four crews before ultimately making him its first-ever official to be fired for performance during the season.

NFL spokesman Michael Signora confirmed Sunday that "there is a rotation amongst the crews throughout the season." Signora did not provide details on the decision to overhaul Blakeman's crew for Monday night's game.

An officiating source said Sunday that the five officials added to Monday night's crew are all highly respected and have performed well this season.

The Chiefs-Rams game, originally scheduled to be played in Mexico City before it was relocated to Los Angeles, is a rare matchup. Since 1970, there have been only four other games pitting teams with one or fewer losses this late in the season. And according to the Elias Sports Bureau, this is the latest matchup ever between two teams averaging at least 33 points per game.

The following is the full crew for Monday night's game, as listed on the official flip card published by the NFL, with the officials' permanent referee in parentheses:


Referee: Clete Blakeman

Umpire: Ramon George (Blakeman)

Down judge: Dana McKenzie (Blakeman)

Line judge: Rusty Baynes (John Hussey)

Field judge: Dale Shaw (Jerome Boger)

Side judge: Brad Freeman (Clay Martin)

Back judge: Tony Steratore (Boger)

Replay: Jim Lapetina (Brad Allen)



http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/2...ff-rams-chiefs

[Mecca]

Originally Posted by The Pest

In 3 penalties.....that's 45 yards (including a new set of downs for us) that were blatantly not ****ing called by the refs.

Peters lays on Brady? Easy penalty.
Suh rips Brady back like that on a slide? Easy penalty and a fine.
Peters takes his helmet off against the Patriots? Called 100% of the time.

If Suh did that to Brady it'd be a talking point today about how he should be suspended.

[ghak99]

Originally Posted by The Pest

Then Peters should have been called for taunting. He pushed his player off of Mahomes and then climbed on top of him....and then had to be pulled off. Whether he was shit talking or not.....that's a ****ing penalty every day of the week. Not called.

I'd sure like to know what was said when they were face to face on the ground.

I found it hilarious that you can see a lot of these uncalled penalties right in the highlight video the nfl posted on Facebook. That false start stands out so bad a blind man could see it.

[gold_and_red]

Originally Posted by Mecca

The NFL treats this shit like the mafia man...these guys are indoctrinated to not say shit, announcers won't even do it.

So refs are in constant fear of harm even after they are away from the game? Who even signs up for such a job?

[Rain Man]

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

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.

[Fish]

Originally Posted by gold_and_red

So refs are in constant fear of harm even after they are away from the game? Who even signs up for such a job?

Yeah, we're supposed to believe that the NFL has these refs out there cheating and fixing games to supposedly increase NFL profits, while they pay them peanuts for a part-time gig less than 20 days out of the year. Makes sense, right?

[ptlyon]

Originally Posted by Fish

Yeah, we're supposed to believe that the NFL has these refs out there cheating and fixing games to supposedly increase NFL profits, while they pay them peanuts for a part-time gig less than 20 days out of the year. Makes sense, right?

Absolutely!

[RunKC]

Originally Posted by staylor26

Yup, can’t believe I forgot about that. Ford barely grazing Rosen’s helmet was a penalty but that wasn’t?

I’m thinking that was because the Rosen play happened in the pocket and Mahomes was running down the field.

Suh is a dirty POS so that’s not surprising.

[FAX]

This is an interesting debate.

I've never met a human who didn't exhibit some form of bias. (Actually, I don't think I've ever even met a housecat that wasn't biased.) Combine that reality with the fact that so many penalties in a football game are "judgement" calls and you have all the necessary ingredients for disparity.

Of course, that's the "human element" associated with officiating and I'm okay with that. But you have to ask yourself why officiate the games at all? What's the purpose of having rule "enforcers" on the field?

What I have a problem with is a layer of incompetence superimposed upon potential bias. When that exists, concerns are perfectly understandable. Last night, this officiating crew was obviously either sleep-deprived or incompetent. (Considering the blatant errors that had to be reversed, there's really no other way to describe what occurred.) If an observer can be truly objective, one has to recognize that incompetence combined with bias can well lead to unfair and unequal application of the "rules". This leads to doubt ... which is a logical and rational reaction to the kind of exhibition we saw from that officiating crew.

Trying to draw conclusions from a specific play or call is avoiding the basic problem. If the refs can't call a game honestly and impartially ... and most importantly ... consistently ... throughout the game ... game to game .... league-wide ... skepticism is an appropriate response.

We'd all like to believe that the typical officiating mistakes we always see are simply the result of normal, run-of-the-mill "human error". On the other hand, we could also be wrong about that.

FAX

[The Franchise]

Originally Posted by RunKC

I’m thinking that was because the Rosen play happened in the pocket and Mahomes was running down the field.

Suh is a dirty POS so that’s not surprising.

Mahomes slid and gave himself up. Suh could get a career ending injury and a lot of people would be happy.

[Halfcan]

Vegas took a bath on the "Over" bets- Refs seen getting in line today at the casinos to cash out.

Easy Money.

[displacedinMN]

Originally Posted by scho63

And he took off his helmet while in the middle of the field in front of a ref and no call. That's a 15 yarder

Duane Rudd Agrees

[Eleazar]

Originally Posted by dirk digler

I am not a conspiracy theorist and really the only game that I have a major problem with was the Pats game. There is no way in hell you can go through an entire NFL game, one where holding happens on every play, and not get a single penalty.

I just want consistency and fairness, either it call it for both teams or don't call it all.

Guess what? The chiefs didn't get called for holding in the New England game either.

In fact, there were only 7 accepted penalties in that game, TOTAL. It was a pretty clean game. That was our least penalized game of the season, and it was theirs too. We had 5 and they had 2. That's not an outlandish difference.

Does the fact that the most penalized team in the league also only had 5 penalties in that game tell you something? The crew swallowed their whistles for most of it.

Yeah, I get that people remember John Madden saying that holding happens on every play, but show us all the holds, and then show us the same types of holds from the same games that were called on the Chiefs. Obviously, no one can do that for the Pats game, because it didn't happen.

Nobody ever does this because the arguments about massive NFL conspiracies to keep the Chiefs - the team with the biggest young star player who is tearing up the league and driving TV ratings, mind you - down where they belong, are all based on "Well if we got more than them it wasn't fair!"

It's like talking to little kids. His piece of cake is bigger than mine. No fair.

[dlphg9]

Originally Posted by Fish

Yeah, we're supposed to believe that the NFL has these refs out there cheating and fixing games to supposedly increase NFL profits, while they pay them peanuts for a part-time gig less than 20 days out of the year. Makes sense, right?

They make 173,000 a year lol

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by O.city

So the Chiefs lost last night because of the officials?

The tight officiating on the DBs early in the game absolutely changed how our CBs played, yes.

Nelson and Scandrick are physical corners. They're not guys who are going to run with Woods or Cooks; they're guys who are going to succeed by getting into their bodies and muddying them up.

You have a crew out there that's willing to let physical play slide and Nelson and Scandrick will be MUCH more effective. That's how they've been effective all season; crews just don't call games that tight. This crew felt the need to play to their 'All-Star' status, IMO. They felt the need to call this game extremely tight, especially in the secondary. They wanted to be noticed, IMO.

That was especially damaging for our #2 and #3 CBs, IMO. Fuller, OTOH, has the physical skills to run with guys and I think he played a much more effective game than the other 2.

I think the outcome would've absolutely been different had the game been called differently. I also think the game would've been much different had basic shit like false starts from Havenstein been called.

So yes, the officiating was absolutely a factor in the outcome of the game. The sole determining factor? No, probably not. But another brick in the wall for sure.

[staylor26]

Somebody mentioned it last night, but it sure is funny how we raerely get illegal contact, defensive holding, or PI with the weapons we have.

I guess teams are just doing THAT good of a job against the toughest group to cover in the league.