Jeremy Conn: Replacement Refs Need To Go
People have been bashing the Replacement Officials since the preseason and my opinion its justified.
It's not just about making bad calls, but it feels like they are almost never in the right position to make a correct call. The flow of the game has been horrendous and they don't even seem to know the rules. We have seen extra timeouts, a few extra 2 minute warnings, and the ball spotted wrong after penalties. In my opinion, the games have gotten very chippy and some players should have been thrown out in a few games.
Also I believe with the new rule enforcements, that players safety is at risk for the calls not being made for defenseless players or for a QB that slides to give himself up. There have been 43 pass interference calls so far in the first 2 weeks which is almost double that from last year. In the past 32 games, home teams have won 25 of them. That trend might not mean much but the refs could very well be influenced by the home crowd.
We have also had a ref suspended from a game because he was a fan of the team and we had an official tell a player he needs a big game out of him because he is on his fantasy team.
