The NFL’s replacement officials became a national punchline during the first three weeks of the season, and they were finally given the boot after a disastrous decision to award the Seahawks a game-winning touchdown in a Monday night meeting with the Packers. But despite all that, Americans still prefer the NFL’s replacement refs to their representatives in the U.S. Congress.
Public Policy Polling, a legitimate polling firm that sometimes displays a sense of humor with the questions it asks, attempted to gauge the popularity of Congress by surveying Americans to compare Congress to a number of people who are generally considered unpopular in America. And one of the questions asked in its latest poll was, “What do you have a higher opinion of: Congress or NFL replacement refs?”
The results: 56 percent of respondents picked replacement refs, 29 percent picked Congress and 15 percent didn’t have an opinion one way or the other.
The full poll is here, and it shows that while Americans do have a low opinion of the House of Representatives, there are still a few things Americans hate even more: Telemarketers, John Edwards, the Kardashians and Lindsay Lohan all lost in their respective head-to-head battles with Congress.
But replacement refs turned out to be popular, relative to Congress. The poll did not break down the results among Packers fans.