OT: MNF open thread
Broncos and Falcons, in the ATL.
10-0 Falcons early. Peyton's thrown 3 picks in the first quarter.
I need 18 points from Matt Ryan/Julio Jones to win my fantasy matchup, so I'm hoping they do that and ease the pain of the Tigers' loss from earlier today.
Who are you pulling for tonight?
September 17th, 2012 at 9:32 PM ^
September 17th, 2012 at 9:37 PM ^
September 17th, 2012 at 9:38 PM ^
I need Peyton to get 12 points to win my fantasy game, he is at -5 right now.
September 17th, 2012 at 9:40 PM ^
September 17th, 2012 at 9:41 PM ^
You do have to admire that these officials are apparently willing to run over to the sidelines and tell coaches, "Look, I have no effing clue what I just witnessed, but if I had to wager a guess..."
September 17th, 2012 at 9:43 PM ^
September 18th, 2012 at 12:30 AM ^
I thought the same exact thing actually. A lot of the games I have watched so far, I've seen a lot of instances where there isn't a flag, then a player complains, then there is a flag. I don't get it.
The most egregious call though was that Golden Tate hit on Sean Lee. I know SportsCenter covered it for a second, but I don't know if they mentioned that there was actually a flag thrown on that play. Not against Tate though, but on a Cowboys player that shoved Wilson when he was running out of bounds. Wilson didn't even go down. So that received a 15 yard personal foul penalty, but Tate got nothing. At least he looked like an idiot after blowing up a defenseless player. I have no idea how you celebrate a blindside hit. A 2 year old can make an impressive hit on someone that isn't expecting it. Can't wait til Tate gets blown up and the guy that blindsides him celebrates like a jackass.
September 17th, 2012 at 9:43 PM ^
September 17th, 2012 at 9:46 PM ^
if you are head of the referees' union, approximately when do you think you're going to answer your phone and hear "it's Goodell, we're ready to talk"? I'm guessing pretty soon.
September 17th, 2012 at 10:11 PM ^
The first time one of these games gets chippy (a lot of them have tended that way because the officials can't control them) and someone gets hurt as a result. The cost of a couple of lost games for a star is more than the total value of the dispute.
September 17th, 2012 at 9:50 PM ^
"The second flag that was thrown was... not administered"
September 17th, 2012 at 10:03 PM ^
I need Denver for 8 points in my confidence pool, but barring a 2nd half turnaround that is not going to happen. I don't get it either, Peyton loves playing in domes, but 3 picks already? SMH. I'm in grad school class right now so I'm following on gamecast but not actually watching - is he making bad decisions or just poor throws?
September 17th, 2012 at 10:08 PM ^
Average official salary = $50,000 (this could be off by a factor of 2 in either direction)
Seven officials/game x7 = $350,000
Sixteen games/week x16 = $5.6 million
Add in benefits etc. and maybe I'm low on the salary (although I don't think I am) and you get $10 million / year, tops.
Player salaries alone run somewhere around $4 billion/year. They're risking a multibillion dollar business over a dispute that could be settled for maybe one five thousandth of that.
It's like ruining a $10 million piece of equipment because you can't be bothered to fund a routine maintenance schedule that would run you $200/month. Or buying a new car and then trashing it because you don't feel like spending the money to ever change the oil. It's insanity.
September 17th, 2012 at 10:19 PM ^
but they are asking for $8000/week. that is ridiculous. that would $128,000/year per official for only working one day a week.
September 17th, 2012 at 10:35 PM ^
Each week this goes on, each time a game is decided by a bad call or clock mismanagement by a retired D3 or high school official that can't keep up with the play and has no idea what he's seeing when he does, that price tag probably goes up.
As comical as the officiating of this game has been, it's probably the best of the three NFL games I watched this weekend (Rams/Redskins, Browns/Bengals).
Sometimes you have to pay for skill. Sometimes your guys go out on strike and you find out you can't replace them and realize maybe you should have struck a deal before that was demonstrated.
September 17th, 2012 at 10:58 PM ^
...and found that soccer referees in Spain are paid 6000 Euros/match. At the current exchange rate that's almost exactly $8000.
At the Euro they got a 200 Euro / day retainer and 10,000 Euros / match ($13,000).
September 18th, 2012 at 7:42 AM ^
September 17th, 2012 at 10:12 PM ^
Guy I'm playing has Dontarious (sp?) Thomas left....i'm still up 17 points.
afraid about garbage time scores...
September 18th, 2012 at 12:30 AM ^
Ummm....Demaryius*
September 17th, 2012 at 10:19 PM ^
Yeah the officiating is bad, but I'm not really going to blame the refs. They are trying their best, but up until a little while ago they were basically reffing Finlandia vs Ferris State. It would be hard for anyone to adjust to that big of a difference in game speed. The NFL needs to bite the bullet and get the regular refs back.
September 17th, 2012 at 10:44 PM ^
I dont think anyone is blaming the refs, but rather the situation in which they have been placed. Any high school or low level collegiate ref would jump at the opportunity to work in the NFL, even temporarily. They have been put in an untenable situation. In the 80's, the NFL tried using replacement players. Can you imagine seeing players like Stephen Garcia, Tate Forcier, and Mitch Mustain playing instead of Brady, Rodgers, and Peyton? You don't blame the guys for jumping at the opportunity, blame the NFL for not finding a solution to the problem. Every mistake these underprepared refs make only strengthens the case for the real refs. Sure they may cost a little more, but quality isn't cheap. This game hit halftime at 10:32 PM mostly due to the inexperience and indecision of the refs.
September 17th, 2012 at 10:26 PM ^
Peyton Manning has always thrown really ugly sprials. I'm always surprised that his balls ever get to the receiver.
September 17th, 2012 at 11:22 PM ^
I do feel bad for these refs.. They're doing their best but the NFL has thrown these guys to the wolves. They way ESPN and the rest of the sports media scrutinizes every little detail these days the replacement officials didn't stand a chance. The NFL better get on this though because its lookin terrible. The Ravens should've won yesterday and can you imagine if Seattle had won last week???! Pay the Zebras!
September 17th, 2012 at 11:50 PM ^
September 18th, 2012 at 12:33 AM ^
Didn't see the full game. What happened with the offiicials that everyone is complaining about?! Personally, thus far in the season, the games I've watched I haven't seen too much to complain about. A few errors here and there that usual referees wouldn't have made, but nothing significant. Tonight it sounds as if there were some bad calls, what happened?
September 18th, 2012 at 12:58 AM ^
Part of the issue isn't the calls but the way the refs handle the game. They clearly let it get out of hand between the players and take way too long on calls/need reviews because they got the call wrong. And now the players seem to be learning how much more they can get away with and that they can influence calls by presuring the officials. It will only get worse.
September 18th, 2012 at 7:40 AM ^
September 18th, 2012 at 8:29 AM ^
For the most part, I'm with you. Before last night, I really hadn't seen anything terrible. But, and this was just from the first half, here's what I saw last night:
- There was a scuffle between players near the Broncos bench. John Fox (Denver head coach) gets involved, trying to pull a Falcons player off his guy. People start shoving, a ref gets shoved hard enough that his hat falls off, another ref throws a flag. They eventually get all the players separated, but then the head ref literally ran back and forth across the field multiple times to discuss things with the coaches. This went on for like 10 minutes, and I'm not really sure why. They ended up penalizing the Falcons player who shoved the ref, but nothing else came of the situation.
- Matt Ryan gets flushed from the pocket, scrambles forward for a few yards, and slides before getting tackled. A couple Broncos players hit him right as he's sliding. The contact looked pretty instantaneous in real time, and I thought could have gone either way for a personal foul. Initially, no flag was thrown. But as soon as Ryan started motioning for a flag and haggling a ref, the ref threw a flag and Ryan got his penalty.
- The Broncos defense got called for 12 men on the field. John Fox was livid because he was certain there were not 12 men on the field (there were). Apparently, this is a challengable call now, so John Fox challenged the play, and as he was screaming in a ref's face, the ref threw a flag. I thought "Hmm, John Fox must have said something he shouldn't have, so he's going to get an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty." Nothing came of the flag, no penalty was administered, and the head ref didn't say anything about "there is no penalty for..." That's when Mike Tirico said the line, quoted above, "The second flag that was thrown was... not administered."
The whole first half was just weird.