Refs can't get any worse....right?

Based on the pre season...are the refs doing what you thought they would do? Throwing flags on what seems like every 4th play ect. I mean it can't get much worse then this other then just go to flag football.

If you watch inside the NFL on showtime they showed the Marshall block which was fantastic and it was flagged for no reason. And they went over a lot of plays like this ect.

It's so frustrating as a fan to watch a game be ruined by this power hungry league with very vague rules and changes every year. Hate it...

They can, and they probably will.

I hate to see so many nice plays on offense ruined by penalties. I think the emphasis on holding has taken as many TDs away as it has given.

I understand replay, but it ruined the excitement of the moment. We had to wait for a ref to watch video and confirm that celebrating was the correct reaction. Now we have the flags doing the same thing at an alarming rate.

The entire flow of the game is ruined by prolonged discussions and hand wringing over everything. I hope players can adjust and come to an understand with the referees over what will be called and what will not. If each officiating crew didn't have their own standards, maybe things wouldn't be so hard for the players.

If the officials didn't automatically throw the flag/blow the play dead based on assumptions and only did so when they clearly saw the play, that would be great too. We've had numerous great defensive fumble recoveries TDs wiped off the history books because of officials calling the play dead because they assumed it to be dead. Didn't clearly see the ball carrier down? Don't call the play dead.

You know it's bad when refs are getting more TV time than most players.

Next year will be the playoff expansion

☆Throw flag at brady to moss☆

Illegal use of truthful speech.

Pats have 45 penalties for 466 yards called against them and benefited with 25 for 205 yards

The Broncos have 29 for 235 against in one less game and benefited with 26 for 156 yards

quite a disparity in for/against....NE almost 2 to5...Denver virtually 1 to 1

http://www.nflpenalties.com/

I've gone from being into every game to keeping it in the background. It just seems like the ball is snapped and then they cut to the referee to see whether the play gained yards, got a first down or lost yard. The players are just peripheral, every once in a while they get to do something footballish.

You'll see how worse it can get when we face Denver

ArchAngel007 said:

You'll see how worse it can get when we face Denver

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Julius Thomas just chop blocks guys all game so he will be going low....let's see if they call it.

At the game on Sunday...it got to a point of where pats would have a 15 yard run or first down pass. And I would look in the back field for flags then celebrate...that's when you know it's bad...

I also subscribe to the conspiracy that the refs are purposely out to get the Pats and thats why we get so many penalties while other teams catch breaks

I am so tired of seeing the refs especially on plays that everyone knows are going to be declined. Defense jumped off sides and the offense made a big catch...I'm good with the announcer or replay filling me in and no punk ref having a conference call etc to tell me the penalty is declined.

I get angry when they interrupt a game only to have their mic go out. How can a billion dollar industry have so many technical difficulties. Playclocks not working etc just annoys me to no end.

I've seen many other games this year and the refs were just fine. Games where Dennard would not have been flagged or Gronk for jarring. Boger and a few other crews are just making all refs look bad.

I posted this in another thread...

Last year the Pats had 69 penalties for the whole season, this year they have 45 after 4 games...

Last year the whole league had 3245 penalties for the season..

This year the whole league is on track for 4168 for the season..

About a 21% increase for the whole league...

Is Peyton happy??

There is such an enormous amount of money bet on football that you have to wonder if the games are rigged. I know this sounds impossible, but look at what happened in professional basketball. It is easy to rig a football game since holding happens on every play; it is just a matter of calling it to change the outcome of a game.

The refs do seem to thrown flags that stop the game from becoming a blowout, especially in the first half.

Sunday night it's 14-3, the pats are marching down the field again, the then that ridiculous unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on the Gronk puts them back 15 yards, the next drive again the Pats were driving and the chop block call on Connelly.

Of course the worst one was the OPI call against Troy Brown in the AFCG against the Colts! The pats are up by 17 going in for another score and the infamous OPI, stops the drive and then the colts mount a huge comeback. Without that call, the pats at least kick a field goal and that game is over right there and then in the second quarter. Watch how late some of these flags come, it's like the ref sees a big play and then says, oh we can't have that, let me call something.

My mother had her 70th birthday on Sunday. The Pats gave her a great win. But at dinner, all the casual-NFL friends were talking about: the penalties ("every fricken play," said a good friend); the scandals ("NFL players are so hopped up on drugs they can't tell right from wrong," said a women I little know of); the penalties, again ("The refs use the penalties like basketball to keep games tight for more viewers." A friend.); and everybody agreed upon two things: College Football and Basketball are much better than the over-officiated games in the NFL and NBA.

The bottom-line will be affected soon. Unfortunately, the player scandals will dull the senses of the NFL gurus. They will blame the player behavior, not the ridiculous, arbitrary enforcement of asinine rules.

Well they want to help it become an exciting passing league. However the DBs are already at an incredible disadvantage. If they followed the rules the way the league wants them too they would be giving up TD's left and right. They won't stop because at this point they can't. They will take the flags because it's only 5 yards over a TD.

The biggest problem is the inconsistency from crew to crew. We all knew that Boger's crew would be far worse than the usual crew, and some crews are more or less complete unknowns, insofar as game planning goes. While I don't think ref crews are necessarily trying to influence games, some are just merely incompetent or vainglorious.

Where the league can **** with things a bit is in how they assign crews. We already know that the assignments are not necessarily always random, given the whole Mike Carey/Washington situation. If the NFL wanted to make a high probability of a Broncos win in Foxboro, couldn't they just assign Boger to the game? Or, if the league wants the Pats to come out with a win to make the race for the #1 seed tighter, hey could assign a crew that keeps the flags in their pockets.

That's something I really don't like, and it hasn't yet affected my desire to watch games, but it IS changing my perception of what I'm watching, and that is the first step toward me making a decision down the road about whether or not to make the NFL the #1 sport on my watch list.

I made the argument that the replacement refs were no different than the regular refs. Now, I actually believe they are worse! Some of the stuff they are calling is just wrong or mostly, very selected. I think if the NFL truly wanted the officiating to be un-biased, they would allow penalties to be reviewed. Let everyone see and judge.

Brady_to_Moss said:

Based on the pre season...are the refs doing what you thought they would do? Throwing flags on what seems like every 4th play ect. I mean it can't get much worse then this other then just go to flag football.

If you watch inside the NFL on showtime they showed the Marshall block which was fantastic and it was flagged for no reason. And they went over a lot of plays like this ect.

It's so frustrating as a fan to watch a game be ruined by this power hungry league with very vague rules and changes every year. Hate it...

Click to expand...

I've turned off a few games this year just because of the calls by the refs. One was an early Pittsburgh/Baltimore game where the deciding play of the game was a penalty on the Steelers after a great hit caused a fumble down at the goal line.