Replacement Refs Increase Danger For Players
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By DERON SNYDER
Friends, football fans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to praise the NFL’s replacement officials, not bury them. I compliment them for accepting the challenge and allowing the games to continue. I congratulate them for reaching the pinnacle of football officiating, notwithstanding the unfortunate route. I commend them for doing their absolute best in an exceedingly difficult and trying situation.
Let’s hear it for the replacement refs: Hip hip now go away!
I thank them for their service, but here’s hoping we never see them again. At least not until they’ve improved to the point where they’re actually ready for the NFL under non-lockout circumstances.
They clearly are overwhelmed with their task, understandably so. Even with years of experience at lower levels of football, they’re ill-prepared to handle the world’s biggest, strongest and fastest players on national TV. There’s a reason these refs weren’t in the NFL, and it shows.
It’s one thing to slide a rookie ref in with veteran officials, who can nurture and shepherd the newbie. That’s the way to break-in first-timers.
But when the entire crew is composed of greenhorns, the refs are like sheep trying to police dueling wolf packs. It’s not going to be pretty, as evidenced by Week 2.
