Turn Back Tuesday

I'm turning the clock back to last night because, quite frankly, I'm still stewing.  Feel free to enjoy this.

I'm sure most of you have seen, read about, or heard about the incident that happened during the end of Monday Night Football.  I want to preface this by saying that this has nothing to do with my love for my Packers.  I do want to say that this epidemic is going on across the league.  There are so many terrible things that are going on in this, and last night's game was really the icing on the cake.

Here's video of the play...


Now I don't know about you, but when one person catches a ball and another person just kind of throws his hand on the ball, the person who caught the ball has possession, not the person who threw their hand in there.

This is just the terrible refereeing that has plagued the league this year because of the referee lock out.  The refs are locked out because they want a pension plan as opposed to a 401(k).  That's pretty much the brass tacks of it all.  So instead of the actual referees who have trained for years for this, we get a group of incompetent men who are trying their best, but are in way over their heads.  I've seen so many former players, current players, and other athletes weigh in that they are baffled by the calls that are made.

This could cause a big problem in the grand scheme of things.  These replacement referees could be easily used to fulfill bets in Vegas.  They could be compromising the integrity of the game for their own selfish interests.  It's actually happened.  One of the replacement refs is an unashamed Saints fan, which is fine.  Except when that referee will be officiating a Saints game.  Yeah, that almost happened.  One of the replacement refs told a player to do well because that player was on his fantasy team.  That can't be happening in this league.  There is absolutely no way that this can be acceptable.

I know that the commissioner of the league, the actual referees, and the NFL owners have seen all this happening.  Of course the league will write it off and keep the decision final, it protects their interests.  The NFL doesn't want to own up to defeat.  However, the pride of the NFL leadership is taking away from the fun of the game.

And about the integrity of the game, remember the Bounty Program in New Orleans?  The game itself is suffering to almost biblical proportions due to the pride of the ownership.  It's really terrible that this is happening.

I hope the commissioner can see this blog and understand how sick this situation makes fans.  I already left one of the 70,000 voice mails on his phone...