Game Girl

What a debacle!  Yesterday's slate of NFL games were some of the worst I've ever witnessed. Fights between players.  Missed calls.  Non-calls that SHOULD have been calls.  Flags thrown, then picked up.  Beanbags thrown because a ref couldn't FIND a flag in his own pocket.  Interminable wait times between plays.  Frustrated players, fans, coaches and TV broadcasters.  It was, as Chris Ryan put it on the FOX Redskin broadcast I was watching, "A mess.".

I concur.

I'm wondering what Roger Goodell's endgame is here.  Is it to prove a point?  What point?  That the replacement refs can change the outcome of a game?  I would hope not, but it's too late for that.  Seems they've already burned that bridge.  Just ask Baltimore, or DC, or any number of other teams yesterday who found themselves in totally unacceptable situations that turned the course of their games.

Why is he keeping these unskilled, untrained, in-over-their-heads replacement refs -- whom I'm sure are all very nice people but who are CLEARLY not ready for the bright lights of the NFL season -- in these games?

What is it going to take for Goodell and the NFL to relent and pay our real refs what they deserve so we can move on from this disaster before any more damage is done?  OK, it's a typical labor/management stand-off, and I do understand the logistics of negotiations.  Going through a pretty ugly one myself right now, and I know all about waiting for the other guy to blink first.

But in this case, it's not going to be about who blinks first.  I'm fearful it's actually going to be who breaks a LEG first, or worse, sustains a horrible injury, before things turn around.

It's unsafe to have these replacement referees out there officiating these games when they clearly can't protect the players.  We are a tragic injury away from things getting totally out of hand.  And when they do, Goodell is going to have a really serious problem on his hands.

And then it won't matter who blinks.