Armadillo: Tuesday's six-pack
-- The public deserves to know which NFL owners are driving the lockout of the officials that is damaging NFL's credibility. If the 31 men who own NFL teams (Green Bay is a publicly held team, doesn't have one owner) want their franchises to devalue, this is a way to do it.
-- What I'm saying is that Roger Goodell is the front man for the owners, but its not his money, not his fight. Some hardline owners are refusing to give the real officials what they deserve. Its hurting the game.
-- The officials in Seattle last night had the Redskin-Ram game in Week 2; sad to say, they did a way better job last night than in St Louis, and I am not kidding. They're awful.
-- Side note: The regular refs wouldn't have called offensive interference either. Offensive players are coached to do that on Hail Marys, because officials do not call offensive interference on Hail Marys.
-- Lost in the late game hubbub was fact that Seattle had eight sacks in the first half, second-most for a half in NFL history.
-- Mike McCarthy got totally screwed out of a game Monday, but he did not put his hand on any officials. If the NFL doesn't suspend Belichick for grabbing the official Sunday night, they're gutless bastards.
-- Games have ended in bad ways before; Atlanta won a game on a Hail Mary to White Shoes Johnson where he never got to the end zone, and the Raiders beat San Diego on the Holy Roller play when John Madden was coaching Oakland. But there was no instant replay to fix things then. There is instant replay now, but things still didn't get fixed.
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Armadillo: Tuesday's List of 13: Doing some thinking out loud.......
13) September NFL games are increasingly becoming what August games used to be; a time for teams to shake the cobwebs out, get used to each other and position themselves for the post-bye part of their schedules. Except September games count, obviously, and preseason games don’t. Coaches are now so paranoid about injuries that its almost like preseason doesn’t exist, except for meetings and non-contact practices.
12) Not only have Cardinals won 10 of their last 12 games, they’ve won their last nine games that were decided by less than 7 points. Arizona has allowed only two TDs on 35 drives this season, and their last two games were against Brady/Vick. Not bad.
11) Eagles trailed 17-0 at Arizona Sunday with 0:06 left in the half; they had the ball inside the Cardinal 10-yard line. 17 points is two TDs and a FG, so kick the FG, go to halftime down 17-3 and lick your wounds, right? No, Philly got greedy, Vick got crushed and Arizona had a defensive TD that effectively ended the game. Shaky decision, horrendous execution.
10) Eli Manning passed for 234 yards against the Bucs in Week 2, in the 4th quarter alone. Dallas scored one TD against the Bucs, on a 23-yard drive in the second quarter. Go figure.
9) Lot of people scoffed at the late Al Davis when he used high draft picks on a kicker and punter, but years later, Sebastian Janikowski and Shane Lechler are still Raiders and still really good. If only all their draft picks turned out so well.
8) In the space of seven years, the Saints have been devastated by a hurricane in the Gulf Coast region, then risen up to become champs, then been devastated by a political situation where the Commissioner saw fit to cripple the franchise because of a bounty arrangement that had previously been a wink and a nod thing in league circles, even joked about on older clips done by NFL Films. But with lawsuits popping up, the league is cracking down on health/safety stuff and decided to make an example of the Saints. I’m not a New Orleans fan, but it still doesn’t seem fair.
7) Of course, on one hand the NFL talks about player safety, but they have teams playing on three days’ rest most every week, and they have small college officials overseeing games, which can get out of hand if the players don’t respect the men in stripes. It makes no sense.
6) Friend of mine has Time-Warner Cable, and saw NFL Network for the first time this weekend; he was mesmerized by the Red Zone channel. “I just sat there all day and watched it. Amazing.”
5) There were 140 (4.38/team) plays of 20+ yards in Week 1, 143 (4.46) in Week 2, but only 117 (3.9) in Week 3; other than the Tennessee game, which resembled an old AFL game, games were lot less explosive this week. People are talking about the refs more than the players.
4) Memo to Commissioner Goodell; Fans care more about the referee problem than the bounty issue, a lot more; he basically made the Saints forfeit this season over the bounty thing, while the league is held hostage by hiring a bunch of officials who are learning a very difficult job on the fly.
3) Certain teams (Ravens come to mind) seem to be harder for these guys to officiate, because they play through the whistle more, they talk more, which results in more pushing/shoving after each play. Their last two games have been very difficult games to control. We still need the real refs back, though, the sooner the better.
2) $3M divided by 32 equals $93,750, which is how much extra each team would have to kick in each year to keep the referees’ pensions where they have been. That’s a lot of what separates the two sides in negotiations, and for the NFL, it is pocket change. But there are egos involved, big egos, and the overall product is suffering because of it.
1) Once the regular refs come back, the next question will be, how long will it take the players to adjust to having better officials? Some players have hinted that the replacements are letting more things go. The regular refs will not let things go, so we might see a couple flagfests before everyone adjusts back to the way its supposed to be. I just hope its soon.
