Zebras: A Trip to the Zoo

you have an extra official in the booth (preferably one under 75 years old) who buzzes the ref on a questionable play… whether the stupid hood would be necessary or whether the guy upstairs just makes the call is a matter of preference

the whole challenge system is lame – at the very least you should get 2 UNSUCCESSFUL challenges per game.. why do you have to “use one up” if it was the awful refs’ fault?

Damn near ruined what was otherwise a great game. These guys were involved in the game so much there were 3 teams playing out there. I swear these guys alone added an extra hour to the game. Luckily when it came down to it, the players (namely Jacoby Ford) made the plays, so we’re not talking so much about being screwed. I hope this crew never works another one of our games, just pathetic overall (a point I’m sure both sides would agree with).

I really wish the refs would be held accountable for their incompetence. The play in which Moeki caught the 1st down and they said it was 4th down when everyone watching in the stands and at home knew it was 1st was ridiculous. Say what you will about the Routt holding pen in the end zone but that was horrible and also as mentioned by Solomon Wilcotts on the telecast Routt should have been penalized for dropping the INT. Also the Ford 1st down was just plain dumb. At least it gave the team more time but a really poor call. I would be for college replay rules as long as they kept the stoppages to a minimum and didn’t meet for a good ten minutes to figure out exactly what is being challenged.

The last time Jerry picked a winner

yeah if it wasn’t for the refs; the lakers would not be champs.The officiating in that last game was awful and proved it doesnt matter what a team does on the court bcause the refs have the winner picked before the opening jump.

was clearly down and did not fumble. If the Raids lost I would have blamed that.

In theory this is a good idea. A QB gets hit and you’re not sure it’s an incomplete pass or a fumble, allow the play to continue as a fumble and then sort it out later. You can always re-neg if it happened to be an incomplete pass, but if you blow the whistle as an incomplete pass, the play is dead and the teams have to give up on the play. That is understandable.

However, if you rule to allow the challenge system to take effect, you have you allow a broader use of challenges. As we saw here in the game this weekend, the referees allowed the Miller punt return to continue as if it were a fumble in order to stay in line with their training—make the play challenge-able. Except the play wasn’t challenge-able because coaches have only two challenges all game (unless they win both challenges which results in one extra challenge awarded).

I am with Ichristmas. Let’s just have an official in the booth who can challenge the play at any time. It’s kind of ridiculous to think that this rule is in effect in the final two minutes of each half, but it is not in effect for the rest of the game. Magically, once you hit 2:00 on the clock, the game becomes more important? A prime example of this is the Sunday night game when the Packers forced a fumble on a Cowboy kick return. The Packers recovered the ball and with 2:04 left in the 2nd quarter, Nick Collins waltzed into the end zone. Upon further replay review** on the television, it was easy to see the returner was down by contact and there was no fumble at all, but Wade Phillips had used all of his timeouts.

Consider, if one more Cowboy had slowed Nick Collins down on his way to the end zone, if Collins had zigged and zagged one more time, if the play itself had lasted just 4 more seconds, the play would have fallen under the review jurisdiction of the booth and it would have been overturned. I believe if 4 seconds cause a 7 point swing, it should be as a result of the players on the field making plays; it should not be a result of the referees on the field making a mistake.

If we have the technology, if we have opened ourselves up to reviewing plays on the field, why do we limit those reviews? The NFL would lead us to believe that play becomes more valuable 4 seconds later because then the judge in the booth can call the review, but the reality is that play—just as the Nick Miller fumble—was just as important right in the time in which it took place.

Note: As I was trying to watch a replay of the Nick Collins fumble recovery on NFL.com, I found I was not able to view the highlight. The highlight is listed among the NFL.com game highlights, but the highlight film skips this highlight and continues to the following highlight of a Jennings TD catch. It would appear the NFL has removed the highlight from their library due to the controversial call. If this is the case, it again proves the NFL is more concerned with *appearing to be right rather than actually getting the correct calls. This, of course, is not news to Oakland Raider fans, but it is one more notch against the NFL.

I think whoever the people is who review games and hand out fines to players even if they were penalized in the game should review the referees and if they see that they missed calls that they should have made or made bad calls should be penalized too. That way when they start loosing money too, they will start making better calls. Other then that, the players and coaches have a right to complain about bad officiating. Stupid rule that they can’t complain about grown old men like they are sensitive.

Goodell would never review, fine, or suspend officials. He’s too busy fining players for hits that he considers cheap when they weren’t(especially when they weren’t called by the officials), making terrible rules to protect wussy players so they don’t take hits from defensive lineman or DB(why does Brady get special rules when Joe Thiesmann who broke his leg did not?), campaigning for two more games, trying to bring NFL to countries in Europe regardless of whether they care about American football or not, etc. It’s like the man is trying to screw up the NFL and is setting us up for a lockout. I hope he gets tarred, feathered, and run outta town if this does happen. He’s the 2nd worst Commish(imo it’s Selig who’s worst but at least that man has old age dementia working for him).

But this game was one of the worst in memory. This crew got all the easy call right and most of the "big"calls wrong. Watching them bungling around out there was truly pathetic. As I was watching my recorded broadcast of the game the commentators mentioned that 3 or 4 of this crew had worked Superbowls. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, these jerkoffs shouldn’t be allowed to ref pop warner games