Holding players accountable

by cbrown22 on Oct 23, 2010 1:32 PM CDT

I know that this topic is old and people are over it. I'm sorry but I'm just wondering how AP feels about this.

After watching every show on ESPN for the last week talk about illegal hits, I began to realize how stupid the NFL is for making a knee jerk reaction. I do not know if anyone else watched Jason Taylor talk about the whole thing on NFL Live. He made complete sense to me, when he talked about an offensive player makaing one move to protect himself, and how it creates many problems for the defensive player.

I watched the video and it blew my mind how crappy that the NFL described what a good hit vs a bad hit was. Regardless, I think everyone can tell when a guy is purposly trying to hurt someone. Anyway, the NFL is fining all these players for hits, and I began to wonder. Does the NFL fine refs for bad calls?

Now hear me out. If the players are to be held to such high standards to make a judgement in split seconds, then why should the refs not be held to the same standards? I'm saying if you already do this and fine them for bad calls, then make it public that a ref got fined for their bad call. I would feel so much better about last week if that ref got fined 5,000 for making a horrific call.

Poll

Should refs be fined for bad calls?

Yes but it should not be made public

9 votes

Yes and it should be made public

29 votes

No

10 votes

48 votes | Poll has closed

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of Arrowhead Pride's writers or editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of Arrowhead Pride writers or editors.

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Comments

so a ref making a few hundred dollars should have that same fine as a player who makes a coupla million?

NFL Referees make somewhere between $25k – $75k, depending on years of experience, etc, and the position on the field (line judge, side judge, umpire, ref, etc)

so let’s say a flag was mistekenly thrown by a guy who makes $40k … you want to fine him $5k which is 12.5% of his gross income

now, think what your life would be like if you made a simple mistake at work and it cost you 12.5% of your gross income … would you be able to pay it? would you be able to keep your house? your car? pay the bills?

is that REALLY what you want to happen to those refs?

I hope not …

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by upamtn on Oct 23, 2010 6:34 PM CDT reply actions

I agree $5k would be too much. It would make it difficult to find refs period. They all blow one at one time or another.

I don’t think fines are the way to go as a 1st line of correction. Fines are after the fact fixes. What needs to happen is fix the goof WHEN IT OCCURS. We already have a challenge system in place. Bottom line, expanding use of the red flag would allow refs to fix more bad calls before play continues. Its a simple fix, for a couple of reasons. As previously stated, its already in place, therefore it simply expands coverage rather than add another layer of complexity. Secondly, Teams, fans, and announcers generally understand the process.

Refs are human (despite popular belief), and bad calls are just part of the human decisionmaking process. They happen. The ability to fix the call before play resumes acknowledges this fact and takes bad decisions out of the equation. It lets the players decide the outcome, which is the intent.

But I also believe it’s obvious there needs to be a better mechanism in place to punish those refs who constantly blow calls, or blow a single call bigtime. Maybe keep a list of all refs names who have calls challenged. Get too many hits on that list, and you take a week of unpaid leave. Get unpaid leave a couple times in a 16 week period (allows for seasonal overlap), and you’re out. It wouldn’t be hard to flesh this out, but I’m just looking at the concept at this point…Another thing to possibly address is refs who don’t call obvious fouls.

"spend all your time on Xs and Os and Jimmys and Joes" -- Charlie Weis

by rwalke10 on Oct 24, 2010 5:20 AM CDT up reply actions

Tamba gets 'held accountable' enough for all the DE's in the league....

Dexter McCluster's 2010 "Broken Ankle" list:

9/13 vs SD, Mike Tolbert en route to 94-yard Punt Return for TD.
9/27 vs SF, Shawntae Spencer and Travis LaBoy en route to 31-yard TD catch and run.
10/24 vs JAC, Aaron Kampman 2 yards in the backfield en route to 13 yard run.

by Carl C on Oct 24, 2010 8:00 PM CDT reply actions