This from Tom Brady

[Vikergirl]

https://twitter.com/TomBrady/status/1174...48736?s=19

[Guest]

So sayeth the goat. Surprised His tweets aren't in red letters. 

[Guest]

I find it hilarious since he has his own rule. 

[Guest]

Troy Aikman says NFL officiating issues are ‘maddening’ and ‘nauseating’

Troy Aikman is no fan of officiating two weeks into this NFL season. (Lynne Sladky/Associated Press)

By Cindy Boren

September 19 at 11:07 AM

Two weeks into a new NFL season, the same old problem has cropped up. No matter how often the league tries to fix its officiating, it remains an issue.
In Weeks 1 and 2 there were wrong calls. Bad calls. Mystifying calls. Calls that made fans ask, “What was that?” Too darn many calls. Even Troy Aikman, the Fox Sports broadcaster and Hall of Fame quarterback, is fed up, saying, “it’s nauseating” the way all the penalties delay and detract from the game.
“At a time when the league and sport is trying to do all that it can to get the calls right, there’s more controversy than there’s ever been before. I’ve never been a fan of instant replay,” he told Jimmy Traina on the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast.
“I didn’t like it when I was playing and I didn’t like it when it returned when the votes were made years ago to make instant replay part of our game,” Aikman said. “I just think that for the most part, the officials were doing a good job. There were times when I was impacted by the wrong calls and there were times I benefited from the wrong calls. I think over time, it evens itself out.”
The first experiment with instant replay came in 1976; by 1986, it was being used in regular season games. It “gives us a better chance to walk off the field error-free,” Art McNally, then the supervisor of NFL officials, said at the time. But the officiating complaints haven’t gone away.
[The NFL's officiating headaches just won't go away no matter what it does]
“I like what Bill Parcells said back at the time. If we can get all the calls right all the time, then he was in favor of it, but if we can’t, then he was not,” Aikman said. “Now we’re reviewing pass interference. That’s only complicated things from the fan’s perspective. ‘Okay, well, why isn’t that pass interference? Why isn’t that called?’ It’s put these officials in a really tough position. They’re gun shy, to be quite honest with you. The scrutiny has never been as intense as it is right now.
“I don’t know how they correct it because I think in a lot of ways it’s hard to go backward. Instant replay is definitely a part of our game. I don’t think we can ever just not have that. But we keep adding things to it. In addition to that, we keep adding player safety rules, which I’m all for player safety, but it’s hard. It’s become really hard to call a game. I’m sure it’s maddening to watch a game with all the penalties. It’s rare that a play happens when there isn’t some kind of penalty that’s thrown. It’s nauseating from my perspective, and I don’t think anyone, I don’t think those in the game like it and I certainly don’t think the fans like it.”
The league’s competition committee quickly tried to address officiating issues during the offseason. There was an early-season outcry about roughing-the-passer penalties in 2018, and the committee immediately clarified how the rule should be applied. After a missed pass interference call in the NFC championship game in January helped send the Los Angeles Rams rather than the New Orleans Saints to the Super Bowl, owners voted to make interference reviewable.
Aikman had a front-row seat for the latest controversy Sunday in a Saints-Rams rematch — another game marred by an officiating error. This time, the Saints lost a touchdown when an official blew the whistle in the middle of a fumble return by defensive lineman Cam Jordan instead of allowing the play to be completed and using replay to determine whether Rams quarterback Jared Goff had thrown an incompletion or fumbled. That meant that replay could award the Saints only possession of the ball and not a score. Jordan later compared the official to a Foot Locker employee. That was the second time this season the Saints have been left shaking their heads; after their Week 1 win, the league admitted that a mistake cost the team 15 seconds after an improper clock runoff.
[The NFL’s pass interference replay rule has brought more confusion than clarity]
“Why are there errors? It appears to me that many officials are working using their own personal perspective of what is or is not a foul for pass interference, holding, roughing the passer, etc., which has led to inconsistencies from game to game,” Terry McAulay, a former NFL referee who is a rules analyst for NBC, wrote The Washington Post’s Mark Maske via email. “They seem to lack clearly identifiable standards for these very subjective fouls.”

[Guest]

According to NFLpenalties.com, 622 flags were thrown over the season’s first two weeks, an average of 9.72 per team per game. Last season, that average was 7.88; in 2009, it was 6.93. Compounding the problem is the time it takes to sort out each penalty. Aikman figures to see a lot of flags Thursday night, when he and Joe Buck broadcast the game on NFL Network between the Tennessee Titans and Jacksonville Jaguars, one of the NFL’s more frequently flagged teams. As a broadcaster, Aikman is just as bothered as fans by the frequent interruptions.
“What I mean is, the volume of penalties, it just ruins the flow of a game. It ruins the flow of a broadcast. Every single time after a play when you’re starting to talk about something, then you got to stop and everything comes to a halt because you got to hear what the officials are calling, what the penalty is and how it’s being administered,” he said. “There are very few games where I’m not just totally, I guess, disturbed, is the right way to say it, with the number of penalties that come out.”
The league’s focus during the offseason was using replay to avoid a recurrence of the NFC championship game pass interference disaster. The issues this season have been across the board, and in a contact sport like the NFL, there’s simply no way to remove the human element. There have been other complaints, too; Raekwon McMillan of the Miami Dolphins claimed this week that, after a legal hit on Tom Brady, a referee told him, “Stay off Tom,” an example of how rules and their interpretation can change when it comes to protecting quarterbacks.
“For me, it goes back to the play in January, and then we spent eight months talking about instant replay,” said John Parry, the Super Bowl LIII referee who is now a rules analyst for ESPN, told Maske. “Instant replay, to me, is a Band-Aid. It can’t be the fix for officiating.”

[Guest]

Why is all of the blame on the refs for calling the penalties and none of the blame on the players for commiting the penalties?

[Guest]

’ It’s put these officials in a really tough position. They’re gun shy,
to be quite honest with you. The scrutiny has never been as intense as
it is right now.

I'd really like to give him the F* Troy Aikman, but he is dead on here.

[Guest]

@silverjoel said:
Why is all of the blame on the refs for calling the penalties and none of the blame on the players for commiting the penalties?

because they are making part of the game, things that have always been part of the game,  a penalty now.  Rhodes PI calls last year for making contact with receivers that has been acceptable his entire career,  Cook getting the OPI for making contact with a defender on the TD... those have never been penalties until recently.  plenty more... however how the league can focus on holding by the OL and make it a talking point and then let the packers get away with it when they are one of the worst offenders historically...  how about we blame the league and the owners for not providing a stable set of rules and professional refs that train to make these calls?

[Guest]

@JimmyinSD said:

@silverjoel said:
Why is all of the blame on the refs for calling the penalties and none of the blame on the players for commiting the penalties?

because they are making part of the game, things that have always been part of the game,  a penalty now.  Rhodes PI calls last year for making contact with receivers that has been acceptable his entire career,  Cook getting the OPI for making contact with a defender on the TD... those have never been penalties until recently.  plenty more... however how the league can focus on holding by the OL and make it a talking point and then let the packers get away with it when they are one of the worst offenders historically...  how about we blame the league and the owners for not providing a stable set of rules and professional refs that train to make these calls?

They focused on holding specifically because of how the packers have gotten away with it for years.  So how do they suddenly never hold.  Saw several plays where the hands were grasping outside the shoulders, like they always do, and no flag.

[Guest]

@JimmyinSD said:

@silverjoel said:
Why is all of the blame on the refs for calling the penalties and none of the blame on the players for commiting the penalties?

because they are making part of the game, things that have always been part of the game,  a penalty now.  Rhodes PI calls last year for making contact with receivers that has been acceptable his entire career,  Cook getting the OPI for making contact with a defender on the TD... those have never been penalties until recently.  plenty more... however how the league can focus on holding by the OL and make it a talking point and then let the packers get away with it when they are one of the worst offenders historically...  how about we blame the league and the owners for not providing a stable set of rules and professional refs that train to make these calls?

Okay.  I think Rhodes has always been flagged a bunch.  Cook cleared out the middle of a zone defense (this is an important distinction because Cook actually sought out the defender and begain pushing him out of the way of where the play was designed to go).  GB has 2 offensive holdings on the year, the Vikings have 3 (at least 2 if not all 3 by the rookie center).  The Patriots have the same number of OPI penalties as the Vikings, are the refs trying to screw them also?

It seems like it's not that a penalty was committed, but people just don't want the refs to actually call the penalties.  So again I ask, why not put the blame on the players commiting the penalties?  I'm guessing nobody had a problem with the refs calling offsides on Griffen in the first game.  Why is it a issue for other obvious calls?