Time to blow the whistle on refs
Replacement officials are doing what everyone expected them to do ... perform like rookies and it's time the real ones are returned to the field
It's time to stop playing games with the games.
By now even the casual fan has figured out it's just not working. The NFL's replacement referees have had their 15 minutes of fame, and can tell everyone back home they worked on the big stage.
That includes the one who shakes his cheerleading pom-poms for the New Orleans Saints, as well as the ref whose previous duties included making sure there were no uniform malfunctions in the Lingerie Football League. It also includes their fellow fill-ins, the ones who take forever after every call and even then can't seem to get it right.
Real refs made their share of mistakes, too. A lot of people still think the Minnesota Vikings would have been in the Super Bowl had a flag been thrown on an obvious illegal hit against Brett Favre in the third quarter of the 2010 NFC championship game against the Saints. San Diego Chargers fans still talk about Ed Hochuli's premature whistle in 2008 that probably cost their team a win over the Denver Broncos and certainly cost one of the best officials in the league a bit of his reputation.
And who could forget the 1998 Thanksgiving Day game when the referee flipping the OT coin gave the ball to Detroit when it came up tails, even though Pittsburgh running back Jerome Bettis clearly called "tails" on the toss. The Lions took the ball and went down the field to kick a game-winning field goal.
So, of course the real refs weren't perfect, even with cameras replaying every angle. There's a reason Fox Sports filled an analyst's job with Mike Pereira, the former vice-president of officiating for the NFL - because some calls are going to be controversial and some are going to be flat out wrong. The operative word is "some".