NFL Upholds Seahawks Win -- Of Course, What Else Did You Expect?

First, let me start off by stating I got to give credit to Sports Illustrated's renown, Peter King and his piece "Lack of Communication Ultimately Led to Embarrassing Monday Gaffe." Read that and then see how I attempt to take this one step forward. The above video, while I know it's from YouTube, had to ultimately come from ESPN. I converted it from "flv" format to a more universal "wmv".

The NFL offices today came out and conceded that a bad call ultimately cost the Green Bay Packers a win, but I interject that NFL's statement was a self-serving piece of male bovine excrement. Of course, they're going to agree with their "scab" referees (I'm not going to use "replacements" because it sounds too PC.) The bad call they conceded was offensive pass interference -- which is not reviewable and was a meaningless concession. The NFL wants to interject that this call was correctly made on the field and didn't effect the outcome of the game. Moo, moo.

When the NFL sided with the scab referees, they affirmed the erroneous judgement call on the field. Holding is a judgement call, pass interference is a judgement call, and they are not reviewable. However, turnovers are reviewable. That the scabs couldn't differentiate between simultaneous possession and one receiver trying to steal the ball from a defender didn't matter to the NFL offices. Thus, the NFL gets to sit in their offices in New York City and tell everyone, "We're sticking with the judgement call. It didn't effect the outcome of the game. What is everybody poo-pooing about?" It is sooooo self-serving in the referee strike crisis and negotiations in their public statement that a mistake wasn't made, and that they'll continue to use scab referees. Then there's statements out of their office about, "Well, even the real referees make mistakes during games too." IMMATERIAL!!! Would the real referees have made THIS mistake on THIS call is the only question, but we'll never know because they were sitting at home drinking beer and eating nachos. (Unless you're Ed Hochuli, he was probably doing arm curls.) *I know I owe someone a reference to that one, I can't remember who -- sorry.


I'm not saying the NFL should have overturned the call the next day and give the Packers a win -- that would have been unprecedented and set an extremely slippery slope; could you imagine that happening every week? What I'm saying is the NFL talks the talk about "integrity of the game" (moo, moo) but doesn't walk the walk. The NFL should have recognized a mistake was done, that the scabs are knuckleheads and blow calls, but that they won't/can't reverse it, and let's move on to next week.