The Glade 4.0

Seattle newspaper writers getting death threats...

Also, little known fact. The replay official who made the final decision was NOT a replacement... He's a full time NFL employee.. same guy would have made this call if the 'real' refs were in place...

In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first. - George Carlin

^ See my comments above. I want to know who is pushing this storyline through the national media. If you break down the statistics the replacements are almost 100% where the old refs were in terms of calls.

The replacement refs are really struggling with the speed of the game, and it's causing them to screw up on critical calls like Pass Interference. There were several Pass Interference Calls/Non Calls last night that had an affect on the outcome of the game.

I'm not one who believes that the regular refs are perfect. Superbowl 40 (Seahawks/Pittsburgh) ruined me for refs a long time ago.

It just comes down to the fact that there were bad calls, on both sides. The Seahawks won the game, it's over. Move on...

It kinda bugs me that all of this is overshadowing the defensive smack down the Seahawks defense put on Aaron Rodgers last night. 8 Sacks, 87 yards of offense in the first half, for the MVP of the league, and per his own peers is the best player in the game.

The bottom line is, the Seahawks did enough to win the game. It wasn't pretty, especially on offense. They need their recievers to get open. GB's defense is bad, and Wilson had no one to throw to all night. That needs to get fixed before the Seahawks can expect to make, or go far, in the post season.

Except they're not. Also, that was as of last week.

They're more likely to call holding and PI, and less likely to call procedural and whatnot.

Also, they're terrible at pacing and controlling the players.

See this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087 ... %3Darticle

From last week's games.

The NFL Replacement Ref Audit
The Embattled Officials Aren't Wrong as Much as You Think, but They're Definitely Slower.

NFL coaches have thrown 29 challenge flags this season—that's on pace to be an 11% increase from last season. While it may seem like this would give referees a very public chance to be exposed, that hasn't been the case. Only 31% of those calls have been overturned, which is down from 52% last season and 42% in 2010. The challenge call sends the play to an upstairs booth, where it's reviewed by an official who isn't a replacement.

To be sure, there are some changes this year that could affect replays. Starting this season, there's an automatic replay for touchdowns and turnovers, meaning coaches can use challenges more freely on other aspects of the game.

A common image in the last two weeks has been a group of referees huddled together having a conversation while mayhem surrounds them. Their indecision has contributed to games lasting six minutes longer, up to three hours and 13 minutes. As a whole, it's not an apocalyptic number, but the problem is with individual penalties. According to WSJ analysis of 10 games from last week and 10 from Week 2 of last season, which featured roughly 175 penalties, the average penalty call from the replacement refs took 31.3 seconds from the time the whistle was blown until the explanation of the penalty was finished. That's eight seconds more than the time used on average by the regular referees.

THEY PUNISH…
Defensive backs. Fifty pass interference calls were made through two weeks this year. That's up 28% from last season. Holding penalties were called 121 times, up from 107 a year ago. Perhaps most startling, they've called 21 personal fouls, up from four last season. Those fouls are general misbehavior penalties and don't include infractions like roughing the passer or unnecessary roughness.

THEY IGNORE…
Procedural penalties. Illegal shift (2011: 6, 2012: 0) and illegal player downfield (2011: 7, 2012: 1) seem to have been overlooked by the officials. Illegal use of the hands is down from eight last year to four this season.

In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first. - George Carlin

They're more likely to call holding and PI, and less likely to call procedural and whatnot.

Also, they're terrible at pacing and controlling the players.

Fifty pass interference calls were made through two weeks this year. That's up 28% from last season. Holding penalties were called 121 times, up from 107 a year ago

Procedural penalties. Illegal shift (2011: 6, 2012: 0) and illegal player downfield (2011: 7, 2012: 1) seem to have been overlooked by the officials.

the average penalty call from the replacement refs took 31.3 seconds from the time the whistle was blown until the explanation of the penalty was finished. That's eight seconds more than the time used on average by the regular referees.

^ See my comments above. I want to know who is pushing this storyline through the national media. If you break down the statistics the replacements are almost 100% where the old refs were in terms of calls.

19 Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. 20 There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

So while the total number of penalties may be similar (I would wager that after this week it isn't), the types of penalties are broadly different. Do while there may be fewer illegal shift (5yd) penalties, holding and PI (5 yd Auto 1st or 10yd and Spot Foul or 10yd for defense and offense respectively) are far more impactful to the games.

In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first. - George Carlin

The new refs are not worse than the old refs. They just call different penalties versus ignoring others. They are far more likely to enforce holding than the old refs, equally likely to call pass-interference and less likely to call roughing/unsportsmanlike penalties.

19 Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. 20 There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

When reviewing possession, who possesses the ball is unreviewable.

Here's the statement from the league:
"In Monday's game between the Green Bay Packers and Seattle Seahawks, Seattle faced a 4th-and-10 from the Green Bay 24 with eight seconds remaining in the game.
"Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson threw a pass into the end zone. Several players, including Seattle wide receiver Golden Tate and Green Bay safety M.D. Jennings, jumped into the air in an attempt to catch the ball.
"While the ball is in the air, Tate can be seen shoving Green Bay cornerback Sam Shields to the ground. This should have been a penalty for offensive pass interference, which would have ended the game. It was not called and is not reviewable in instant replay.
"When the players hit the ground in the end zone, the officials determined that both Tate and Jennings had possession of the ball. Under the rule for simultaneous catch, the ball belongs to Tate, the offensive player. The result of the play was a touchdown.
"Replay official Howard Slavin stopped the game for an instant replay review. The aspects of the play that were reviewable included if the ball hit the ground and who had possession of the ball. In the end zone, a ruling of a simultaneous catch is reviewable. That is not the case in the field of play, only in the end zone.
"Referee Wayne Elliott determined that no indisputable visual evidence existed to overturn the call on the field, and as a result, the on-field ruling of touchdown stood. The NFL Officiating Department reviewed the video today and supports the decision not to overturn the on-field ruling following the instant replay review.
"The result of the game is final."

So you are hanging your hat on the fact that they are different (but not incorrectly called) penalties?

Oh no. There are a bunch of incorrectly called ones as well. Add those to the procedural ones that are being missed, and these refs are calling a bunch more penalties than the regulars would be.

But then, I remember someone once said that you could call Offensive Holding on every play.

In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first. - George Carlin

Where is the evidence of wrong calls? The plays being reviewed are being overturned LESS than last year (significantly so) and the WSJ article you linked to doesn't say the calls they are making are wrong, just different.

And Bill Clinton, during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” agreed that the replacement officials bungled the call.

“I would not have called that last play the way they did in that Seattle-Green Bay game last night,” he said. “The Packers will wake up this morning and just sort of shake their heads and say ‘We should have won by two touchdowns.”

“New NFL rule. You can catch the ball by catching the guy who caught the ball”

Tate has both hands on the ball, just like Jennings. Tie goes to the Offense.

Seattle Seahawks officially name Replacement Refs their "13th man".

We've covered that ground already in this thread, I think. Jennings had both hands on the ball from the start, Tate got several fingers on it shortly thereafter, and didn't maintain that contact with the ball the entire way to the ground. Even looking at the picture above, there's no way you could say he had possession or control of that ball.

That said, here's another look at the timing.



Tate's right hand isn't even on the ball, it's holding on to the person who caught the ball. His left hand's fingers momentarily grasped the ball somewhere in there, but Jennings clearly and solely possesses the ball from the moment of contact all the way down. He had so much control of it that he could pull it in to his chest before he hit the ground. No one can look at that animation and say that Tate possessed that ball. If Jennings wasn't there, and the ball nicked the tips of Tate's fingers like that, it would have bounced off and careened out of bounds.

(Oh yeah, then there's the blatant offensive pass interference that supercedes all of it.)