It has less to do with the salary than it does the pension issue.

The difference right now between the refs and the NFL is about 100,000 per team per season in an industry that has between 6 and 9 billion in revenues per year. The profits are reportedly over 1 billion per year.

So the package that the referees are asking for comes to something just north of 1.5% of profits per year.

How are these guys greedy pigs? Because they want their pensions that the NFL originally promised them? Because they are important pieces to a billion dollar industry whose job it is to protect the leagues most important assets?

You can recall 2 games over how many years where the regular refs blew calls that may have cost a the Bucs a game- but you can tell everything will be OK after 2 games with the replacements, even though a game last week got dangerously out-of-control with the replacements (Oh wait, I didn’t really see that, it’s just the biased media telling me what to believe).

Apparently you’ve missed some of the ridiculous blown calls, the late flags, and the long times it sometimes takes to make calls. But you’re OK with a bunch of replacements learning on the fly in a billion dollar business.

BTW, the fact that NE doesn’t care for Ben Dreight makes me like him even more. You all should be absolutely ashamed of your performance against a kevin Kolb led offense last sun. Lots of ppl lost $$ because of that suspect effort @ home. No excuses, just pathetic.
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You lost money on a NFL wager so now Drieth’s mishandling of a playoff game 26 years ago is ok?

Dave- are you the same kind of guy that watches a baseball hit a home run off a 100mph fastball and say that that isn’t too hard to do?

I’m curious about your experiences as you moved up the referee ladder to the NFL. What kind of differences were there, what kind of game prep you had to do at the various levels, the changes of speed at different levels, and the stress and dealing with criticism at each level. Please elaborate.

It’s easy to criticize the referees as an average fan. We have the benefit of hindsight, multiple angles, close-ups, instant replay, and slow motion angles. The referees on the field have none of those, have one shot and an instant to make a call and have to see through 300 pound moving bodies at field level to make these calls.

I’d love to see an average fan on the field making trying to make these calls. It would make for great and hilarious reality TV.

And if they can’t get an even an above-average or average fan to do it, maybe you could take a shot at it.

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The only ref I’ve ever heard or read of that had such a stipulation put in place. What a P.O.S.
It was more than just Sugar Bear’s bogus roughing the passer penalty that ruined that game, though that was the topper. Phil Villapiano was quoted as saying he was holding Russ Francis all game long; “they never called it so I kept doing it”. While out on a pass route, George Atkinson threw an elbow into Francis’s head, breaking his nose – no penalty. Sam Cunningham ran out of bounds late in the 4th quarter where the 1st down marker WAS, but came up 1 yard short? The Pats’ center, Bill Lenkaitis, was called for holding 3 or 4 times after going the whole season without 1 holding penalty; including the raiders only loss that year, a 48-17 whipping by the Patriots. It’s said that Drieth did another Pats game in 87 or later but I’m sure it wasn’t in Foxboro if he did; I know it would have been after Sugar Bear Hamilton was off the coaching staff.

The amount of bad calls, missed calls, and mismanagement of player conduct in such a short period is asanine. If you let them run a full season, playoff games and a superbowl? Its going to get ugly.

Yet, somehow, Hochuli didn’t just hold onto his job, he continued to be one of the leading officials. And that’s why I support replacement refs, to eliminate the atmosphere where huge mistakes weren’t just excused, but were basically rewarded.

It is who has the ball in the pile when the refs make the ruling. Unless you were there looking in the pile you don’t know this.

They also called a phantom pi on a crucial third down.

If you were watching the game you would know this was on 2nd down not 3rd.

Denver had a few questionable calls go their way as well, the refs did not cost them that game their poor play did.

Dreith is despised in New England.