Others see it too.

That's life. The refs are going to make mistakes regardless of the circumstances. People need to learn to live with the mistakes and move on.

The NFL has a system in place that grades refs. When refs don't perform up to the leagues' grading scale they are no longer refs in the NFL. Expecting officials to get 100% of the calls correct at various points or circumstances of the game is unrealistic. People need to understand that the league isn't going to crucify it's officials publicly.

 

I don't think anyone is asking for 100% accuracy. Just call the blatant fouls. My in-laws, (Charger fans) didn't know the new rule on field goal tries and both of them thought the Chargers formation looked "wrong" If two late 70s folks can recognize it without knowing the rule, the 2 refs, who were 10 feet away and presumably know the rule, should be able to pick up on it!

 

Again, what do teachers do during the summer? They prepare for the schol year. They create lesson plans, they do research for new learning methods, they take classes to get better at their job. Should be no different for an NFL ref. They should read playbooks and watch game film. If that tmakes them better at their job, they have a better chance of working postseason games and making more money.

 

The refs should be able to recognize certain things that happen but people make mistakes. It is what it is.

 

The problem is, it is a part time job. They only officiate for 6 months so what would the league do with them for the other 6 months, bring them to the league office everyday during the off season to shoot paper wads at each other????

 

No offence but who cares what they do for the other 6 mos. Look at BF's link !
http://onlyagame.wbur.org/2012/09/08/nfl-refs-workload
Even the lowest paid is enough to last me all year!

 

They have a choice just like any other seasonal employee. They can do nothing, get a temporary job or work on getting better at being a ref. Being a full tie job doesn't mean going to work 40 hours a week every week.

 

Full time referees won't necessarily make better referees. Regardless of the off season training/preparation the refs will continue to make make good calls, bad calls, non-calls, mistakes ect.

 

Sure they will, it's part of being human. The goal is to try to reduce the number of mistakes.

 

Time to move on, there's probably a 1000 or more missed calls every season, I saw 6 missed calls in the dallas eagle game alone: If the chiefs made their field goal you wouldn't hear a peep out of Steeler fans about a missed call. If you want to blame someone, blame the kicker....

 

Doesnt make it right though. I get that by starting 0-4, we dug ourselves a huge hole but the fact of the matter is, that we STILL had a shot to be in the playoffs. Is it ideal to have to depend on other teams for help? No- but lots of teams do it every single season. Its part of the game and part of the NFL season. We had every right to be given a fair opportunity to advance and we werent. Period. Having the NFL issue a statement saying they screwed up, again, does nothing. In fact, as Steeler fans, it makes it WAY worse.

 

Well I have my masters degree so i dont take classes anymore...so now i just play with my son...play summer league hoops and just work out in the summer...but thats just me....

but on a serious note the traveling and the extra prep work they do, 30-40 hours extra a week has to take its toll on some of these guys on top of their other full time jobs...

 

I see where a few of yall are talking about the refs training for the speed of the game. I was just talking to a coworker and we were throwing around some ideas. Here are some of our ideas.

*Need to be full time
*NFL should start recruiting some of these college players who are not going to make it in the NFL or some of the ex practice players etc. Then train these guys have them start in some lower levels, get them in college, arena, somewhere to get them use to calling a game. Have these guys work more camps and scrimmages/preseason then like MLB bring up the guys who are showing they can handle it. I would think these college athletes would have no problem with the speed of the game or at least would do better than several of these older refs.
* Recruit the best college refs.

 

to semplify the job they start to make everything challangeable

 

This.

 

BINGO FREAK!!!!

 

Better give teams more challenges then.

 

Left out a few things. Some teachers do nothing, some travel with their spouse on business trips if they are able to, some continue their education beyond a masters (my sister is a teacher and is going for her doctorate right now) and some just get a temporary job - one thing popular in my area is getting a job at the beach for the summer.

 

Phil Luckett was the Ref that made the decision on the coin toss Thanksgiving day.

There were a couple of questionable calls in SB XL that went the Steelers way. There are questionable calls that happen in just about every game on Sundays. Just because questionable or non calls happened doesn't mean that a game wasn't well officiated. A large majority of the calls or non calls that were made in SB XL were the correct decisions. You may feel differently. I am glad the calls worked out in the Steelers favor. Official's calls generally have a way of balancing out.

I don't believe that Levy was the official responsible for throwing the flag on the Chargers' illegal formation. " During kicking situations, Referee has primary responsibility to rule on kicker’s actions and whether or not any subsequent contact by a defender is legal."

Fans only remember the bad calls or non calls that were made. Fans have a tendency to forget the large majority of good calls or non calls that were made by officials.

Fans are most familiar with referees because they make the calls on game day. It appears that officials don't come into the league as referees. Officials must make their bones as field officials for several years before becoming referees. I suspect that the league only promotes officials to referees that get a large majority their calls correct over several seasons. We generally don't concern ourselves with the names of the other officials on the field. So, we wouldn't know if those officials are demoted or fired because they didn't live up to the leagues grading standards.