A Solution to the NFL Referee Dilemma

The hysteria in the sports world surrounding the NFL replacement referees leaves little room for reason. After all, nothing sells advertising quite like the seemingly endless parade of coaches, players, fans, and “experts” blathering about how terrible the replacement refs are, how The Integrity Of The Game is being compromised, and on and on... So, why let something as inconvenient as, you know, THE FACTS, get in the way of such good ratings?

This whole matter can be put into its proper context and perspective if only somebody, perhaps the NFL itself or a media outlet, would hire an independent panel of NFL rules experts to review the first three weeks of the past 10 NFL seasons, including the current one with the replacement refs. They would collect and classify data on all blown calls. Then, they would compare the blown call data of regular refs in the past NFL seasons with the blown call data of the replacement refs in the current season.

They may well find that despite all the hoopla surrounding the mistakes the replacement refs have made in the early part of the season, the replacements may well be within a range comparable to that of the regular refs when it comes to blown calls. Of course, this may not be the case at all, and the outrage might well be perfectly justified. But it could not hurt the NFL’s case if they came out with evidence showing that the proportion of blown calls by the replacement refs is, say, within 15% of the average for the past 10 seasons. Likewise, if the blown call discrepancy between the replacement refs and the regular refs is found to be significant, then that would provide the windbags with a factual foundation from which to make their argument in favor of bringing back the regular refs as soon as possible... not that they need something as inconvenient as, you know, THE FACTS, to back up any of their arguments!

UPDATE: It appears things in the NFL will get back to normal now that the regular officials are back on the job. Still, the blown call review outlined above would be a good way to get a real idea of the kind of job the replacement refs did backed up by actual data and not obscured by all the hysteria of the first three weeks of the season.