What was exciting but incredibly irritating and utterly frustrating was the officiating in this game. The replacement refs have been a big story this season but last week the officiating didn't seem to be as big of a problem as everyone thought.
And then there's this week. I have never seen such and awful, poorly run game in my life than the one I saw yesterday. The refs could not keep control of the game and calls were made that made no sense or you couldn't understand what the call was and there was just a plethora of bad calls against both teams.
For example, the Skins were 3rd and 18 and RGIII ran out of bounds short of the 1st. All of sudden there's a penalty called, they get 15 yards and a 1st down and this lead to their first offensive touchdown of the game. In the stands, we had no clue what the call was. Couldn't hear the ref make the call. Turns out they called a late hit even though the Rams defender hit RGIII before he went out of bounds. Was it close? Yes. But the regular NFL refs wouldn't make that call, in my opinion. It was clearly not intentional, the Rams player was just trying to stop him or push him out of bounds, which is his job. This may have started the ugliness that ensued the rest of the game between Rams players and Skins players because there was a lot of trash talking, almost fights, just overall...not good.
The bad calls are part of it, but another big problem? Timing. The Rams games yesterday took about 4 hours to play start to finish including halftime. That's a LONG game. And a big part of it is because it takes these refs MUCH longer to make a call or review a play. The Rams scored a 2 point conversion and the refs decided to review the play and it took about 15 minutes before they ruled it as good. That's just way too long. In general, whether it's these refs or the regular ones, there should be a limit on how much time you can review a play. Because in theory, you're not supposed to change the ruling on the field unless there's enough evidence to overturn it. If you can't find that in 5 minutes, the ruling on the field should stand. NFL games are slow enough with all of the penalties, time outs, injuries on the field, reviewing plays...there's enough disruption of the flow of the game. We don't need to make it any longer than it already is.
Listen, I don't blame these refs. It's not their fault that they aren't professionally trained NFL refs. They're trying to do their best and have had to learn rules quickly and in some cases it feels like they're learning on the job. It's really unfair to them.
Who I do blame? The NFL. This has gone on long enough. We don't want to see games decided by bad calls from the replacement refs. The professionals don't always get the calls right but most of the time they do. Does every hold get called? No. But the blatantly obvious ones do. And you know that the players are trying to push the envelope and get away with more because they hope the replacement refs don't see it or call it. That's problematic too.
So it's time to end this. Come on NFL, let's get a deal done today and restore the integrity of the game.
McKayla Maroney is NOT impressed with these refs.
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