Who Said it’s Official?
From the Cheap Seats
by Chris Hahn
So I was going to take the high road. After all, everywhere you turned the week following the 49ers-Giants game, the story was about the officiating. There was no need for me to pile on.
Consider me now on the low road.
Excitement in the NFL had steamrolled into the post-season as a result of the twelve team amoeba that seemed had a chance at the playoffs going into the last weekend. But for as much luster that the NFL had fostered, the officiating has the league office in need of a huge can of rustoleum to remove the tarnish brought on from the recent officiating snafus.
I accept that occasional officiating mistakes are going to happen, and some of those are unfortunately going to have a huge affect on a huge game. It’s a human component to a human game, now in an even greater microscope since we have hundreds of camera angles to see thousands of replays from. In the old days, all we would have had after the game in San Francisco would have been an article in the newspaper about the ‘miscall of a game-altering penalty.’ Granted, that would jump out at you, but it just doesn’t stir the emotion as seeing the replay on SportsCenter, then NFL Primetime, then your local news, then the NEXT morning on SportsCenter.
That all being said, the Steelers-Titans game put me over the edge. While I give referee Ron Blum credit for calling upstairs to determine if he was right about reviewing a play (which he was not, by the way), he really should know. Even from my home in Cincinnati I believe I could hear thousands of fans all over the country (particularly in Pittsburgh) yelling at their televisions that they knew the rule. And for the love of God, do NOT announce to the world that you have to check…just go check!
Move to the end of the game. While the ‘running into the kicker’ call was technically correct, shouldn’t the officials have some discretion in the matter? How many times does a punter get bumped and it is just minor contact? Shouldn’t the same apply? Then again, it’s that subjectivity that led to one official calling defensive holding, er, he means pass interference in the Fiesta Bowl even though the one closest to the play had already given Miami the trophy. And even though the game officials from Nashville won’t confirm they told the Steelers they were out of time-outs when they had two left, none of us doubted the Pittsburgh claim that it happened. We now even EXPECT the officials to mess up.
But let’s not imply it’s only the NFL that has some issues with this whole concept. In the Oklahoma-Oklahoma State basketball game Monday night, the officials missed a shot clock violation that cost Oklahoma the game. In college basketball they can use instant replay, but only in certain situations. Even though there were only 3.4 seconds left, it was the SHOT clock in question, which according to the officials was not reviewable. Yet we have seen times when in the middle of the first half of a game, officials will review to see if a ball hit the rim and should have reset the shot clock. Hmmm….I see…resetting the shot clock in the first half is more important than a violation with under 5 seconds to go?
All I can come up with is this…enjoy the breaks that go your way, frown at the ones that don’t, and figure that in the long run they even out. After all, how can sports fans talk about it being ‘the worst call since Play X’ if there is no Play X to remember? But to keep my sanity, the next time I see a blown call in crunch time, I’m sticking to the high road. Until then, I’ll see you in the cheap seats…