The Great Replacement Ref Controversy of 2012

There are many people outraged by the ending of the Monday Night Football game between Seattle and Green Bay.  Rightly so.  The end of the game was a debacle of epic proportions.  the people opining are passionate about the NFL.  Good for them.

However, much hot air, bandwidth, air time and ink will be wasted this week.  Why?  Because this changes nothing.

The owners have decided what they are going to offer the referees.  End of story.  They are dug in.

This lockout ends one of two ways:  The regular refs cave or someone gets killed because of the replacements' incompetence.  We've written that here before and still believe it to be true.

Meanwhile, the league and network executives are laughing all the way to the bank.  NFL telecasts have now become "must see tv" just to find out what ludicrous thing will happen.  While the ESPN talking heads have to decry this situation, the ad execs have to be loving it.  This latest situation will rule the airwaves for the next week.

Here in the Cheap Seats we are popping popcorn and sitting back to watch the fireworks.  Most fun we've had in a while.  We know the replacements are terrible and in over their heads, but much like a train wreck, we cannot turn away.  That makes us part of the problem, but we're OK with that.

NFL Week 3 Snaps

What can we glean from the NFL's third week so far?  Other then we are not doing well in our Survivor/Suicide Pool picks.

In a battle of two surprise 2-0 teams, Arizona is for real, Philadelphia is not.  The Cardinal defense is for real.  Michael Vick is not a winning NFL QB.

New Orleans is Arkansas.  Two teams who lost their head coach amongst off season upheaval are now both floundering.  In opening the season 0-3, the Saints defense has been horrid.  The offense is lacking.  Could be a long season.

The Week 1 matchup between the Jets and the Bills confuses us to no end.  New York dominated Buffalo in that game.  Since, the Bills have crushed Kansas City and beat Cleveland on the road.  The Jets were not close in a game against Pittsburgh (which lost to previously winless Oakland in Week 3) and were taken to ovetime by a Miami squad that many have said is in disarray and beat the aforementioned Raiders in Oakland.

Our Twitterverse centers around Dallas area teams and the consensus was that a not-very-good Cowboys team beat a horrid Tampa Bay outfit.  The majority opinion being that the Week 1 win over the Giants was a fluke.  Perhaps overlooking the facts.  The Cowboys beat the Giants.  The Bucs should have beaten the Giants.  The Cowboys beat the Bucs, should have won easily.  Perspective, people.

Which allows us a nice segue to Tampa and head coach Greg Schiano.  Schiano stuck to his guns in defending playing to final gun.  We're sure you remember the controversy caused by the Week 2 effort by Schiano's team on the final "victory formation" play by the Giants in the game's waning moments.  Well, the  Bucs were at it again against the Cowboys.  This time even calling timeouts to extend the game.  Dallas was prepared for it, so it didn't become an issue.  Here in the Cheap Seats, we have no problem with those tactics.  The offense should not dictate when a game is over.  The rest of the league will adjust.

The games are becoming interminably long due to the replacement refs.  Too many times they have to be corrected by replay.  In one game, five (5), yes five, plays were overturned by replay.  However, as we've opined before, this doesn't get settled until the refs cave.  Roger Goodell and the NFL owners have dug in.  There is no way this ends well.  Either the refs cave or someone gets killed on the field. Helmet to helmet contact is running rampant because none of the players or coaches have any respect for the replacements.

We didn't cover everything here, but it has become too long already.  More later