They don’t have the benefit of replay, slow motion, and multiple angles. They have to see everything at field level, through and around 300 lb. bodies., and they have one shot. As fans, it’s easy to criticize them, and on these boards, the majority of fans don’t realize how difficult that must be.

I do agree that there needs to be some type of evaluation system and that the referees need to be more accountable. If players can’t perform, they get released. It should be the same for the refs. I’m not sure how important this negotiation point is to them. The two biggest items are benefits and salary.

The problem with most unions is that because of seniority and the inability to fire people, they promote a lower common denominator of work. However, since being a referee is such a high profile job where your work is seen by millions, there is a lot of incentive to prepare and do a good job.

greg2geez says:
Sep 23, 2012 10:25 PM
The CURRENT officials outperform the FORMER officials every week despite the unrelenting concerted media panic hack job, forcing the FORMER officials to continue to negotiate with NO LEVERAGE.
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Do you own a TV? You should catch an NFL game here and there and see what’s going on.

Actually I don’t own a TV, I own a computer and I watch any game I want for FREE. And I haven’t seen a “replacement” official cost the Raiders or Chargers a single game. Walt Coleman and Ed Hochuli can’t make that claim, respectively.
I also appreciate how the current officials disregard the tennis skirt Dungy whine pass defense ticky tack and let football players play. Perhaps real football is too strong for your taste.

You say the regular refs are morons, and the replacement refs are morons as well. More likely, it speaks more to how difficult it is to officiate these games. It’s that, or there are a bunch of really good referees hidden away somewhere.

These refs don’t call every ticky-tack penalty? There were penalties called on almost every other play in the Pats/Ravens game. I think there were 24 penalties called in that game. These refs miss calls, don’t know the rules (as evidenced by Harbaugh getting 2 challenges today with no time outs), are out of position (standing between the center and the QB in the Bears game today) and have absolutely no respect from the coaches and the players. Teams are pushing the envelope as to what they can get away with and it’s going to get worse, until a game is lost, or worse, someone gets seriously injured.

You don’t like replacement refs? Stop watching the games. Stop buying tickets. Stop clicking on sites like PFT. Otherwise the NFL keeps making mountains of money no matter how bad he refs are.

You have a guy in the booth having to radio down to correct officials.

You have plays being reviewed without an official ruling against which to be measured.

You have pass interference, illegal contact and defensive holding being called and not called with the consistency of balls and strikes in major league baseball.

I wonder how long until the powers-that-be in Vegas start exerting some influence.

Lets just get this deal done so we can stop talking/thinking about it.

Let them sit, proved on FOX today there is very little difference in time or calls by replacement officials.
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Right. No one is more objective about the process of union busting than Rupert Murdoch and the worldwide minions of his media empire – including Fox Sports.

I’ve been following the lockout and this is the first I’ve heard of this. Having a say in evaluation / corrective action does not equate to no accountability.

IN FACT, if that were the ref’s stance this would be considered a strike, not a lockout.

What aspect of the refs “demands” do you find ridiculous?

I mean really, right now the scabs are just throwing flags at random.
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The fact that they refuse to be held accountable for their performance. There should be no job in this country that you can’t get fired, demoted, or otherwise held to a certain standard. If you don’t meet that standard, you lose your job. Just like every other job.