Give the Replacements a Little Break
Earlier this week, the NFL and their referees came to an agreement on contract negotiations, and the refs resumed their duties on Thursday in Baltimore. During the first three weeks, the replacement refs were under constant fire for missing calls and making questionable calls in some cases. Most notably: the past Monday Night Football game held in Seattle, when two players of opposing teams came down for a last-second-hail-mary pass that resulted in a simultaneous catch call. The replay shows an interception and not a touchdown, but even more obviously confusing is the fact that two refs were giving contradictory signals on the result of the play.
The benefits of the return of the regular refs have been evident in the first weekend of NFL football, with clear displays of familiarity with coaches, players and referees, as well as less dramatic reactions to penalties and calls. Having these refs back brings back a sense of professionalism to the game–there are not constant break outs of fights with players or blatantly missed calls that give a sense that the replacement refs were not fully capable of controlling the game, especially in a playoff setting. It is relieving to know that less calls will have to be reviewed because they will be (for the most part) called correctly.
Though, I do think that the replacement refs did a pretty good job for the positions they were in. Some of the refs that were filling in for the actual refs were previously division II and high school officials, so they had never experienced the speed of the NFL. When players are moving that fast, it is hard to watch for everything a ref has to check for during a play, which can be as many as three or four things in a matter of a few seconds. Even further, already this weekend, another obvious call was missed by the regular refs that had the potential to change the outcome of the game against Green Bay for the second straight week, showing that the regular refs are also human. From here on out, this will hopefully be a much more enjoyable season where the focus is the teams and not the refs.