NFL to have conference call with all officals this afternoon (Friday)

Yeah big surprise. NOT

 

i think all they did was show footage while they talked about having the confeence going on to say that there have been way too many mistakes.of course refs aren't going to be able to get it right 100% of the time but 75% of the time is not acceptable.

 

I think this is about as close as we are EVER going to get to an admission from the NFL that they blew the call, it cost us the game and they KNOW IT. There is no way in the world that any objective person can look at that replay and not see that not one, but TWO Phin players were the first to jump on the ball. I just don't understand why the Ref ignored the calls from the back judge of "White Ball"!! Sure the whistle blew since they thought it was a TD, but before going under the hood, knowing that there was a possibility that it was a fumble, should have asked the other Refs what they SAW in the scrum. With that "eye witness" account, than looking at the replay, should have been more than enough to give Miami the ball. The REF on the field made the call that Miami recovered it.

 

i wish death upon goodell and his zebras.

 

Thaaaat might be a little harsh. I wish they would stop f'ing up and own up to their mistakes... I dunno about death though... Maybe have their doctor diagnose them with cancer and upon further review find it to be a Cist?

 

Carl Johnson explained the whole replay system and said that once it went to replay, Gene and his crew got it 100% correct. However, he was HL for X number and years and he pretty much said that the HL made a judgment call.

IMO, the HL should have waited a split second before making his call. If he would have, then the out come of what happened could and would have been different.

 

**** em and the zebras they rode in on.

 

If the players are going to be fined for bad hits etc, fine the refs for blatantly bad calls. Just have to make the fine more than the bribe and bad calls stop immediately.

 

Why... didnt the NFL say they got the calls right?

 

na, i dont think its to harsh. they r criminals, people pay to go to games and see fairly fought games, not games that r fixed by the league and officials. they r thieves.

fine, maybe not death, but 10-30 years in prison without parole.

 

They did admit the other call was not made correctly (the GB TD call that was overturned), and it seemed like they had no idea how to handle the blown Miami call either since he said the "officials were doing what they were supposed to" in that situation.

Saying that you can't tell who had the ball after the pileup was crap though....it was clear who grabbed the ball before the pileup ever happened. You can tell that the VP they put on camera has no experience speaking in public too....it was like watching a 4th grade poetry recital. He delivered a script....twice...which is probably a good thing. He never said the call was correct; he just said the refs did the right thing.

I have no idea what they plan to do about it during this meeting, but I have a feeling that they will rule in Maimi's favor in this instance. What that means though...who knows?

 

Why doesn't the NFL just admit that in a close situation like that the officials should rule it a fumble on the field and then establish possession on the FIELD? That seems so obvious to anyone who watches football and has half a brain. Why don't they admit that in that regard the official didn't do his job correctly?

 

Because the league has an obvious vested interest in defending its officiating. It’s a matter of maintaining the quality of the on-field product.

A potential Tim Donaghy situation scares the hell out of the NFL, MLB, NHL, NCAA, and any other organization that relies on judgment calls made by officiating crews.

 

This makes sense. I don't doubt for a second that head official was happy that Pittsburgh won. I don't care what anyone says. What else could it be assuming a few things:

- He does have at least a small amount of common sense
- He saw the ball pop out EXTREMELY close to the goal line
- He knows like the rest of us that a video is not going to allow us to see where the ball is 100% of the time in a pileup.

Knowing this you can logically conclude that he went against the common sense ruling for a reason. He seized an opportunity to do this knowing he wasn't going to be violating any NFL rules. He's the head official. It doesn't matter if some other official initially threw his arms up in the air. He could run over and say, "Hey, we're going to rule a fumble, find out who has the ball." He went out of his way to make sure everything would have to be determined by video. I know he was pulling for the Steelers. The NFL can try to ignore these things but they are not going to go away. When they allow this to happen with no consequence whatsoever they're just creating an atmosphere more conducive to a Donaghy type incident.

 

The problem was the line judge, not Gene Steratore.

You’ll want to read the first answer here in full. Some interesting trivia in there, including a ghost from 2009.

 

It was my understanding that the crew chief can change the ruling on the field. Is that incorrect? I've seen officials signal TD before and that not end up being the call.

 

One judge can signal TD, the other can not, the two can converse and change the ruling.

The problem is that the ruling of touchdown was reaffirmed—“the ruling on the field is a touchdown”— and so after the ruling was overturned, everything that happened afterward also had to be examined by video evidence. Because Steratore didn’t see clear evidence that we recovered the fumble, he had to give the ball back to the Steelers.

You can blame CBS for screwing us over on that one, because the replay booth gets the same camera angles we do on TV. The Associated Press had a nice still photo of two Dolphins defenders landing on the ball, Alama-Francis and Randy Starks IIRC, with Rapistberger’s hand nowhere near the ball like he later lied about in postgame interviews. (Same with Hines Ward, he lied too.) But CBS’ angles were different.

Basically, it was a perfect storm of BS.

 

Story of our lives.

 

he said it was the wrong call on the field but the right call after the replay