Use of NFL replacement officials a ‘disservice to everybody’
Sep 5, 2012, 3:52 AM | Updated: 4:56 am
There remains a dark cloud hanging over the NFL as it gets ready to kickoff the 2012 season.
The league’s marketing campaign states it’s “Back To Football”.
However, fans and players are wondering when it will be “Back To Referees”.
Until then, replacement officials will be used beginning Wednesday when the defending Super Bowl champion New York Giants host the Dallas Cowboys.
“I think it does a disservice to everybody — the players, the coaches who work so hard all week as well as the fans, if you don’t have the best referees,” Cardinals kicker and player representative Jay Feely said. “The game is so close. The margin of victory and defeat so slim that a couple of bad calls, a couple of missed calls can cost you a game.”
The Cardinals a year ago missed the playoffs by a game.
Feely also referenced the Giants last season and the Green Bay Packers the previous year. Each narrowly made the postseason before eventually hoisting the Lombardi Trophy.
“One game,” Feely said, “can be the difference between sitting at home or winning the Super Bowl.”
Many players have been vocal in their support of the locked-out referees, but really, what else can they do.
Feely believes the NFL won’t budge in its position until a regular season game is determined by poor officiating.
“I don’t think you heard a lot about it in the preseason because they were preseason games,” he said. “But there were egregious mistakes in every game. Coaches didn’t scream and yell like they would in a regular season game. If you have those same mistakes [in the regular season] you’re not going to have calm coaches or calm players or calm owners. I think then [a deal] will get done.”
So, then perhaps a couple of weeks?
“I don’t know, you tell me,” Feely said laughing. “If Jerry Jones loses a game against the Giants in the first game because of bad calls, how long is it going to take to get a deal done?”
