The Third Team on the Field: A Discussion About NFL Sub Refs

I will confess, I am a football fan. It’s taken years of grooming and explanation from my father for me to fully understand the game and all of its rules. There are so many reasons for flags to be thrown on the field and even a long-time watcher can be thrown by a call. (The poor foreign exchange student my family hosted had to sit through several baffling Sundays of “moving the chains,” horse-collars, and touchdowns.)

Football fans know that this season is different; those throwing the flags aren’t the usual suspects—they’re replacement referees. The NFL and NFL referees are still in a deadlock over contracts (much like the players the season before), but unlike the players, the NFL has decided the season can start without the usual referees. Backup refs have been called in from all walks of football life, from high school to community college referees (not many from university college football since they’re starting their high profile season as well).

I and all football fans have waited with curiosity and anxiety to see how these sub refs would do. Unfortunately, unlike the commentators who are trying to make the best of it, I disagree that they are doing a good job. Now, before I continue, I will say that the job must be tremendously intimidating; walking into such football sanctuaries as the Meadowlands, Soldier and Lambeau Fields and facing their subsequent ardent fan bases.

Having watched my team, the New York Giants, Wednesday September 7, play their division rivals the Dallas Cowboys, it became evident that these refs are not going to be up to par. I understand I sound like the whiny fan who doesn’t want to blame my team for a humiliating defeat, but there are some very obvious play calls, and should-have-been calls, that shifted the momentum of the game. The most egregious of these was Victor Cruz having defensive interference in the end zone; a dead-center throw from Eli Manning would have found him for a touchdown had he not, for lack of a better word, been mugged by the defender. Even the half time commentators remarked what a bad non-call it was.

As a fan, I am not only worried that bad calls and non-calls will take winning out of the hands of the teams and give it to the sub refs, I worry about the potential harm it will cause to players. Dallas and many teams (as I have discovered from watching a full day of Sunday football) are figuring out they can get away with holding, cheap shots, and dangerous tackling. For example, Dallas had at least six instances of holding against the Giants that would have cost them 10 yards apiece. Another example was in the San Francisco 49er/Green Bay Packer game, when Packer Jermichael Finely tried to step over his 49er defender when the play was dead and the 49er decided to stand up, trip him, and subtly step on his ankle—in front of a ref. There should have been some sort of personal foul call.

Players are deterred from playing too dirty by implementing penalties. If they are caught, they are penalized, yardage given to the other team or taken away from theirs; not to mention they’re probably in for a loud lecture from a coach. There are many known dirty players, even teams, and as a fan I have to worry about players’ safety if there will be cheap shots taken and no penalization enforced.

I feel I am not alone in being anxious for the NFL referees to settle their business and return. It is a scary thing to wonder if your team’s game will be thrown by bad calls and non-calls from the refs. The sub refs are doing the best that they can do but are, quite literally, out of their league. I am thrilled to have football back, yet I am apprehensive about the outcome of the season because of the influence of the third team: the sub zebra stripes.