"The integrity of the game"

[oldecapecod11]

by bachslunch » Mon Nov 30, 2015 10:35 pm
"...They say that umpires and officials are doing their job best when you don't notice them, and I agree."

And therein lies the rub... the officiating crews are huddling almost as often as the teams and they are constantly
the focus of attention.

Somewhere here we have posted this before but the search function stinks so it will be repeated.

When coaches coach a perfect game and players play a perfect game and all the conditions are perfect,
then - and only then - would they be entitled to a perfect game by the officials.

Since that is unlikely to ever happen, we must accept mistakes.

After all, if Nixon could be pardoned, and the Hardy-Lewis-Rice types accepted, there is no limit to tolerance.

[conace21]

I think that instant replay is necessary for today's game. It is very true that the game did fine for years without it. However, the game is so much faster today; the players are so much faster. So many of these plays are almost impossible to catch live. Kirk Cousins scored on a sneak,where the ball was flashed over the edge of the goal line for a milisecond. Its almost impossible to catch that live. Getting it right is the most important thing. The current system isn't perfect, but it's adequate.

[JohnH19]

What the powers that be don't seem to realize in their silly attempts to increase offense and player safety is that the more rules they add, the more rules there are to break. This leads to more penalty calls, many of which are debatable or downright silly. I am so sick of illegal contact and hands to the face penalties...

Now why would you have a problem with hands to the face?

Wanna a player to lose his helmet during a play?

How many times did you ever see that called before this year?

[bachslunch]

by bachslunch » Mon Nov 30, 2015 10:35 pm
"...They say that umpires and officials are doing their job best when you don't notice them, and I agree."

And therein lies the rub... the officiating crews are huddling almost as often as the teams and they are constantly
the focus of attention.

Somewhere here we have posted this before but the search function stinks so it will be repeated.

When coaches coach a perfect game and players play a perfect game and all the conditions are perfect,
then - and only then - would they be entitled to a perfect game by the officials.

Since that is unlikely to ever happen, we must accept mistakes.

After all, if Nixon could be pardoned, and the Hardy-Lewis-Rice types accepted, there is no limit to tolerance.

Didn't quite mean it that way. I'll qualify further: They say that umpires and officials are doing their job best when you don't notice them, and I agree. But if they make a mistake, I'd rather they take the time to get it right if they can.

Accepting every officiating mistake that happens, especially when the mechanism is there to fix it, strikes me as unfair to the teams involved.

[Bryan]

Goodell deserves props for being proactive instead of reactive

I guess I should apologize because I must have been living on a different planet the last few years. Goodell is possibly the most reactive prominent sports figure in the history of professional sports. How many times has he changed course on player discipline issues? His involvement in deflategate was a joke and a subversion of existing rules. If you think Goodell is some champion for player safety, then I would have to counter that Goodell's handling of ex-player health issues is so abysmal that it borders on criminal. If Goodell was seriously concerned about player safety, then the NFL would be funneling money into R&D for better equipment (especially helmets), long-term healthcare, playing surface requirements, etc. He hasn't.

Is the game safer now than it was 10 years ago? I guess there might be fewer "kill shots" by DBs against defenseless WRs, but I still see them happen. New rules have been developed to protect QBs...but most of the time the rules result in bogus "personal foul" penalties on defenders against scrambling QBs, and in the Rams-Vikings game a few weeks ago we saw the Rams try to blow out Teddy Bridgewater knees and then concuss Bridgewater after he had slid to the ground in a span of about 30 seconds. I would say that if the game is "safer" now, then the change is minimal, done at the cost of greatly affecting the product on the field, and will have absolutely no future impact on future lawsuits against the NFL. If people think an ex-player like Keith Van Horne is going to drop his lawsuit because Lawrence Timmons got called for a personal foul after pushing Russell Wilson while Wilson was still in bounds, then that is probably a pipe dream.

I'm not trying to be hip by cutting down the NFL, but I do think the pro game has lost much of its entertainment value with me. It has almost nothing to do with how Goodell handles off-the-field issues or player safety concerns. It has to do with how the game is being played. If you think that Roger Goodell is the singular reason for the continued existence of the NFL, then I guess you would view him in a positive light. I don't share the same view, as I think Goodell is a self-serving piece of slime. JMO.

[bachslunch]

I'm not trying to be hip by cutting down the NFL, but I do think the pro game has lost much of its entertainment value with me. It has almost nothing to do with how Goodell handles off-the-field issues or player safety concerns. It has to do with how the game is being played.

My thought here is that there's a curve involved where they haven't gotten things fully right yet -- but that doesn't mean they shouldn't keep trying to improve things. It often takes trial-and-error and in-practice oddities that crop up to make a change work even reasonably well sometimes. Nirvana won't be reached, of course, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't make the effort to get closer to it.

[mwald]

I guess I should apologize because I must have been living on a different planet the last few years.

No apology necessary. Opinions vary.

[Bryan]

My thought here is that there's a curve involved where they haven't gotten things fully right yet -- but that doesn't mean they shouldn't keep trying to improve things. It often takes trial-and-error and in-practice oddities that crop up to make a change work even reasonably well sometimes. Nirvana won't be reached, of course, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't make the effort to get closer to it.

A curve suggests some type of linear movement toward correctness. I think the NFL has taken too many backwards steps, and repeated errors that should have been already learned.

I remember the "in the grasp" rule of the late-80's that was supposed to curb injuries to QBs...it didn't solve anything since most QB injuries occur right after they have already thrown the ball, and it put the officials in a terrible situation of having to judge what constituted "in the grasp". I don't know if the current QB protection rules have done anything to curb injuries to QBs...I do know that they've put the officials in terrible situations and have resulted in numerous questionable penalties. Same thing applies to what constitutes a catch...the NFL has inserted so many rules and caveats that it puts the officials in terrible situations. I am waiting for a Super Bowl to be decided by a WR making a running game-winning TD catch in the endzone, only to run into the mascot out-of-bounds while falling down and dropping the ball...leading to a 45-minute instant replay and a "no catch" ruling. Adding rules to the rulebook only makes it harder on officials, not easier, IMO.

The NFL has jumped around a lot with how it applies instant replay. Initially it was a guy upstairs making the ruling, with no time limit. Then they added a time limit. Then they took out the guy upstairs and made it a peep show. Then they added coach's challenges. Then they brought back the upstairs guy who can confer with the officials. In recent years they have seemingly done away with the time limit. New "catch" rules have affected every pass play. Adding all these things up, we currently have a system where it take 45-60 seconds for the ref to saunter over to the peep show, 4-5 minutes trying to judge if a receiver lifted one hand off the ball while catching it, another 45-60 seconds of upstairs consultation, and then some ruling gets issued that is based on randomness. All the while, the replay system devised by the USFL in the mid-80's is still superior to the current NFL system.

[Reaser]

What's great is when a QB gets sacked and there's a penalty for roughing the passer, that helps decide the outcome of the game. For example Palmer getting sacked by the 49ers on Sunday.

You know the Goodell/owner/competition committee apologists were happy about that, they don't want anyone to get tackled playing football, someone might get hurt.

[JWL]

My thought here is that there's a curve involved where they haven't gotten things fully right yet -- but that doesn't mean they shouldn't keep trying to improve things. It often takes trial-and-error and in-practice oddities that crop up to make a change work even reasonably well sometimes. Nirvana won't be reached, of course, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't make the effort to get closer to it.

A curve suggests some type of linear movement toward correctness. I think the NFL has taken too many backwards steps, and repeated errors that should have been already learned.

I remember the "in the grasp" rule of the late-80's that was supposed to curb injuries to QBs...it didn't solve anything since most QB injuries occur right after they have already thrown the ball, and it put the officials in a terrible situation of having to judge what constituted "in the grasp". I don't know if the current QB protection rules have done anything to curb injuries to QBs...I do know that they've put the officials in terrible situations and have resulted in numerous questionable penalties. Same thing applies to what constitutes a catch...the NFL has inserted so many rules and caveats that it puts the officials in terrible situations. I am waiting for a Super Bowl to be decided by a WR making a running game-winning TD catch in the endzone, only to run into the mascot out-of-bounds while falling down and dropping the ball...leading to a 45-minute instant replay and a "no catch" ruling. Adding rules to the rulebook only makes it harder on officials, not easier, IMO.

The NFL has jumped around a lot with how it applies instant replay. Initially it was a guy upstairs making the ruling, with no time limit. Then they added a time limit. Then they took out the guy upstairs and made it a peep show. Then they added coach's challenges. Then they brought back the upstairs guy who can confer with the officials. In recent years they have seemingly done away with the time limit. New "catch" rules have affected every pass play. Adding all these things up, we currently have a system where it take 45-60 seconds for the ref to saunter over to the peep show, 4-5 minutes trying to judge if a receiver lifted one hand off the ball while catching it, another 45-60 seconds of upstairs consultation, and then some ruling gets issued that is based on randomness. All the while, the replay system devised by the USFL in the mid-80's is still superior to the current NFL system.

Coaches should get two challenges per half. If they don't use 'em, then they lose 'em. Timeouts should not be affected by challenges in any way. A team would not lose a timeout if they lost a challenge. Under my plan, there would be no automatic replays called down from the booth. Again, ALL replays would be ordered by coaches. If a play is not challenged or a coach used all his challenges already, then so be it. The call, no matter how egregious, will stand.