Are you talking about fans in general, or Republicans?

The problem is that the players and coaches are taking advantage of a situation and then complaining about it.

It is funny these teams complaining are the same teams that have people delivering the hits to the other side.

The long BS chant from last night followed by the Belichick ref tap is very significant

The money comes from the networks, so when they start complaining, there is a chance that the league & owners will listen

Its the coaches and players that uphold the integrity!!!

How is this possible? Please tell me how regular or replacement refs can solve that problem?

They call penalties after the injury, or not, then the players get fined penalty or not.

The players are the only people that increase the safety of the game without the NFL making rule changes.

The replacement refs are making some really bad calls but call or no call that doesn’t stop or prevent injuries.

Way better then the numskulls who use to make up calls against the raiders every time.

The flaw in this argument and tactic is that the experienced officials ALREADY HAVE FULL-TIME JOBS. HIGH PAYING FULL-TIME JOBS IN MOST CASES. They’re not the ones who are suffering the most now.

In contrast, the NFL brand has been tarnished. This season will most likely be designated with an asterisk. Goodell is running the risk of being forced out in response to mounting public pressure and ridicule. And the NFL’s product and public image has taken a beating and the beating is getting worse every week.

The NFL is losing this battle, not the experienced refs. And the sooner they cut their losses and cut a compromise/deal, the better off the league will be.

This has to end because the players’ lives are at risk. In case anyone missed the news, Darius Heyward-Bay damn near got killed yesterday (literally, as Joe Bidenopolis would say).

I loved what Ian Eagle said while the medical staff was working on DH-B: “This can’t just be something that these guys check off their bucket list – ‘I made it to the NFL as an official’ – but at some point they have to be held accountable for the work they are doing.” Dan Fouts agreed, as you would expect a former player to do. They are absolutely right. I’ll give you that the first week of preseason, the speed and size of the players had to be a shock to these D-2 officials. But they’ve had a couple months to learn the rule book and adjust to the faster pace of an NFL game. The players have figured out that they are still so overwhelmed they can get away with more physical play with no penalty being called. So this Steelers player knew he could hit someone in the teeth with his helmet and the official would miss it, and that’s exactly what happened.

The time for making excuses for these replacements is past, especially now that their ineptness has put a man in the hospital.

The fact that we’re talking about officials every monday morning instead of the great OT games is ridiculous. I’m sick of Goodell already

Come on Terry did you not watch last years playoffs where the happened in CONSECUTIVE GAMES. The Bucs being an awful football team and Josh Freeman being an incompetent QB lost that game not some whistle.

Am I the only one here who thinks the Ravens’ game-winning field goal try last night was a miss?

1) They need to go full-time. If Ed Hochuli has to decide between being an official and an attorney, tough call for him. But it’s always been ridiculous when the refs claim their job is impossibly hard, but resist doing it full-time. And it looks all the worse since other major sports have full-time officials.

2) There needs to be some sort of review system and way to demote and/or fire guys. Hochuli blew a call that cost a game years back and absolutely nothing happened to him. He continued on his rise to being one of the leading officials. That’s not right and that sort of stuff simply cannot be allowed.

The sticking points are with regards to an evaluation system and the guaranteed pension.

1. Evaluation system: The league wants to have a system where each week the referees are grading on their performance, and at the end of the season they can be either demoted or fired. The refs are flat out refusing this, there has been no movement on this from their side. I think this funny because the system the NFL purposes allows the crappy ref to last until the end of the season before any disciplinary action can be done. The question I would ask is if you are as good as you say you are, why do you mind an evaluation system? If you are as good as you say you are, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about.

2. Guaranteed Pension: The league wants to go from a fully guaranteed pension to a 401k plan. The referees want to keep a guaranteed system, at least for the existing refs. This system guarantees 38k to each official no matter how many games officiated per year. This ranges from 20 – 25% of their salaries depending on which number you use as what they make. – I can’t speak for others BUT that is more than I am allowed to put in my 401k a year by almost double.

These are both items that the referees aren’t budging on.

People keep blaming the NFL and Goodell. Is it really the NFL or is it the refs thinking that they can bleed the NFL because people are complaining about the replacements.

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It’s not the number or percentage of certain types of penalties that are being called. It’s the blatant mistakes that we didn’t see with the regular officials that are so frustrating. The last 2 minutes of the Bengals/Redskins game featured:

-Spotting a false start + personal foul 25 yards from the original LOS.

-Calling for a 10 second runoff (correct call) but not making sure it actually happens.

There are going to be missed calls, but a lot of things are happening that just shouldn’t.

“The NFL has offered a 5 – 11% salary increase for each year of the current contract proposal”

Not true. They’ve offered that amount over the life of the contract. Works out to be a 0.7% raise per year. Of the total money spent on refs.

Which leads to the 2nd point:

The NFL wants the extra officials to be paid out of the same money as the current set. Meaning the current officials have to take pay cut to afford them.

I will probably watch it again after they fix it, but hey… who knows?