NFL Officiating Only Gets Worse and Worse
By Timothy Lindsey
It’s a fact. NFL officiating is only getting worse. only going to get worse. It’s not exactly breaking news to say that the NFL has a major officiating problem on its hands. However, whether true or just perception, things have spun out of control.
Pass interference and roughing the passer are just complete crapshoots at this point and review barely helps. If coaches challenge poor calls, there is less than a 30% chance the call gets overturned, according to ESPN Stats and Info. Here are five examples from Sunday that make you wonder if the league can ever fix this mess:
https://twitter.com/MySportsUpdate/status/1181041513654083589
https://twitter.com/MySportsUpdate/status/1180993353233715202
https://twitter.com/SharpFootball/status/1180936873545519105
https://twitter.com/EMT_Ashlie/status/1180945810072190980
https://twitter.com/PFF_Sam/status/1181190792150441984
The issue isn’t missing a call. That’s going to happen in every game in every sport. The issues are the frequency of calls that are just completely wrong, even after review; how there is a flag on almost every play; how nobody has any idea what pass interference is; and how absurd the roughing-the-passer penalties have become. Here are a few images/examples of either poor calls that were made or poor missed calls:
Los Angeles Rams linebacker Clay Matthews was flagged after a very questionable call roughing the passer penalty that played a huge part in the Rams loss at Seattle.
Pittsburgh Steelers defensive end T.J. Watt was called for yet another questionable roughing the passer after landing on Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan.
Los Angeles Rams cornerback Nickell Robey-Coleman hits New Orleans Saints receiver TommyLee Lewis before the football gets to him. By rule, that is pass interference. It was not called.
Philadelphia Eagles cornerback Avonte Maddux hits Green Bay Packers receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling before the ball gets there. Once again, another missed pass interference call.
The most concerning part of all is that it feels like Pandora’s Box has been opened and there’s no going back. It seems we’ve reached a point where the problems aren’t able to get fixed. Football is America’s most popular sport and every Sunday, the sport takes a hit. The more hits the sport takes with officiating, the more hate it will get from fans, players, and coaches alike.
ESPN’s Pat McAfee believes that recent mistakes by NFL officials have costed coaches and players jobs. I would like to also add that teams have lost games. It is the biggest problem in the sport right now. Listen to ESPN’s Mike Greenberg interview McAfee on NFL officiating and it’s many struggles:
https://www.instagram.com/p/B2hIC0jAanm/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
It is just a fact. NFL officiating has taken away the joy of the game of football so far this season. How can this issue be fixed? The answer is it can’t. Human error is part of sports. All we can do as fans and athletes alike is to just hope a bad call like the ones above isn’t made at an important time in the game, which could cost a team a win and the jobs of players and coaches.
*I wanted to try something new at COD and am still a little new to the reporting and journalism world. This was a very new type of project for me. I hope you liked it. I’m not sure it was my best work but I had fun learning about journalism this semester and maybe it will be part of my future.
