NFL Football - 2012 Season Thread

[H Tower]

Please don't feed the trolls

[Ben Kenobi]

Shut the **** up you idiot. Do you even watch football?

Yes, I do watch football.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Yeah, but it's like with Jimi. You can listen to Jimi but you can't hear him. I think maybe you watch football but can't see football.

[ColdWizard]

Obviously he was watching the CFL.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

He'd be run out of Texas on a rail.

(do they still do that?)

[SlowwHand]

Oh, yeah.

[ColdWizard]

Nah. They'd take pity on the poor Canadian and gradually try to convert him to Cowboyism.

They save the rails for Redskins fans and Oklahomans.

[-Jrabbit]

Looks like the NFL is going to settle with the refs, tout de suite.

http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2012/09/25/nfl-referees-reportedly-close-to-new-deal/

[H Tower]

Hochuli

Every Tuesday night, the veteran official with the Popeye arms has been holding rules-related conference calls with all officials. Average attendance on the calls, I'm told, is between 90 and 110 per week. Hochuli, the officiating sources says, gives all officials a test each week, similar to one they might get from the NFL during a regular week of preparations, and then goes over the results on the phone with the officials.

"That's one of the reasons why the officials will be up to date and ready to go,'' the officiating source said. "Ed grabbed the bull by the horns and made sure that whenever this thing ended, the regular officials would be ready to go back to work immediately.''

[Ben Kenobi]

Yeah, but it's like with Jimi. You can listen to Jimi but you can't hear him. I think maybe you watch football but can't see football.

Odd, I seem to remember the regular referees screwing the Chargers out of a game vs their division rivals. Maybe I just have a low opinion of the regular officials?

Y'know, like Ed Hochuli?

[-Jrabbit]

You mean that game in September of 2008? You should really get over it.

It was 2nd down, final two minutes of the game, Broncos looking to tie it up. In a play that seemed all too familiar to anyone who had seen the infamous Brady tuck rule play against the Raiders, Jay Cutler rolled right, let the ball escape his hand, and seemed to have fumbled the game away to the Chargers.

Only problem, Ed Hochuli inadvertently blew his whistle as soon as the ball hit the ground, meaning only the fumble/interception could be overturned. By blowing his whistle too early on, Hochuli prevented the Chargers from taking over possession of the football. Hochuli knows he screwed up, and the Broncos know they caught a lucky break:

“I blew it,” is how Hochuli explained it to Turner on the sideline.

“That is not acceptable,” Turner said. “This is the NFL. Our guys fought hard to come back. It was just disappointing to have that kind of performance spoiled by that call.”

“I think it was a fumble,” Cutler said afterward, and he was one of many Broncos to say so.

That’s a terrible break for the Chargers, but there’s no way to be certain that they would have recovered the fumble had the whistle not blown. Additionally, the Chargers still could have stopped the Broncos on the 4th down play or the two point conversion to get the win. They didn’t do either.

Also, there are some key differences between those situations:
1. This week's was a game-ending play, clock at 0:00. On 9/14/08, the Chargers still had multiple chances to stop the Broncos, and failed.
2. Hochuli blew an inadvertant whistle (which, by rule, stops the play). This week on MNF, the entire crew - with benefit of replay - got it wrong.
3. Hochuli stood up and admitted his mistake almost immediately. He publicly apologized. This week's referee was protected from the media, then brazenly, falsely supported by the league.

It's amusing that you had to go back 4 years to make your indictment - one predicated on an inadvertant whistle that did not, in itself, decide the game. Once that whistle was blown, there was nothing to be done. The play was over - something all football players have pounded into their skulls from grade school onward.

The replacement refs took all of 3 weeks before clearly blowing a game, and there have been at least two others that could have gone the wrong way due to things like extra timeouts. There was nothing "inadvertant" about this week's debacle, as the video evidence is quite compelling.

Another interesting note: In a move that can only be described as an admission of guilt, the NFL has decided that no players or coaches would be fined for disobeying league rules about the timing and content of their post-game tweets after the MNF incident.

[Al B. Sure!]

The refs screwed up the ending of the Giants-San Francisco wildcard game in 2002. I remember that game vividly. It was in the playoffs! But the Giants shouldn't have let a 24 point lead go to put them in a position to lose by a botched call.

[-Jrabbit]

If only they had Eli Manning, they would have won it all.

[Al B. Sure!]

Do you remember the 2002 wildcard game, Jrabbit? It's included among the "NFL's Greatest Games" but it ended with a botched call, giving the 49ers a 39-38 win:

Junkin botched a snap for a 41-yard field goal attempt, resulting in a feeble pass play that fell incomplete. The Giants were also called for having an illegal man downfield on the play, and the game ended. The following day, it was revealed that the penalized player (guard Rich Seubert) had in fact checked in as an eligible receiver before the field goal attempt, although a different Giant lineman actually was illegally downfield. NFL Vice President of officiating Mike Pereira admitted pass interference also should have been called on 49ers defensive end Chike Okeafor for pulling down Seubert. Had the two right calls been made, the down would have been replayed at the previous spot, the San Francisco 23.

But like I said, **** happens and it shouldn't have come to that. It was the Giants' fault they would have needed a pass interference call to get in position to win a game.

[-Jrabbit]

I remember the play. Total football follies. And I appreciate that you, a Giants fan, understands the bigger picture and have put this in reasonable perspective.

Because it's true: sh1t happens.