NFL Football Views

"Let the Games begin." "Play ball."
This is how we used to approach our major sporting events. Something says that has changed, and a more appropriate refrain would be:
"Let the officials decide."
There is an increasingly popular point of view that the winners of practically all of our cherished championships are determined not by the players, but by the referees.
Seahawks fans feel that way. Mavericks fans feel that way.
And maybe even some French soccer fans feel that way.
Actually, it was victorious Italy that was on the receiving end of the more controversial calls, including having a goal taken away on a questionable offsides call.
But it seemed possible that the great French player, Zinedine Zidane, may have been kicked out of the game only after an official sneaked a peak at a replay screen to see his head-butt of an Italian defender.
Regardless, the just-completed World Cup featured more dives than an Olympic springboard competition, and those who follow international soccer much more closely contend that the game has gotten away from the capabilities of one referee to control.
Are we just whining more about officials' calls these days? Or are they really getting so many wrong that the games are being taken away from the athletes?
The answer is that as fans and as viewers, we have an incredible amount of technology on our side. We see multiple slow-motion replays from an array of angles, especially when it's a sport as thoroughly covered as the NFL.
The refs, for the most part, do not have technology on their side. Depending upon the sport, a limited amount of replay may be used to check last-second baskets or determine whether a receiver got both feet in bounds.
But for the most part, it's still the referee's eyes making calls on athletes who get bigger and faster each year.
Is the simple answer to increase the amount of technology that officials have at their disposal?
I think in some cases, it has to be.
It's hard to believe that the NFL is actually going into its 21st season since former Cowboys president Tex Schramm helped usher replay officiating into the game. At times, the league's general managers have grown so frustrated with the system that they have voted it out.
That wasn't the solution.
Neither is the current system, which puts the onus on coaches - who have a terrible viewpoint from the sidelines - to risk precious timeouts in order to overturn calls they really aren't sure about. Too often, the networks don't show the replays in time for coaches upstairs to tell the head coach whether "throwing the flag" is a good idea.
The NFL needs to go back to having a full-time official in the booth who can replay anything he wants. And that means anything, including pass interference, because that's no more a judgment call than the supposedly "indisputable evidence" calls that officials have made regarding fumbles and possession calls.
A good replay official, if available, would have overturned the early pass interference call against Seattle in the Super Bowl, and maybe Seahawks fans wouldn't feel that every call in that game favored the Steelers.
While football's stop-start nature lends itself to the use of replay officiating, basketball does not. A courtside official could watch replays over and over of Miami's Dwyane Wade driving to the basket at the end of Game 5 of the NBA Finals without making a clear determination of whether Devin Harris (almost certainly not Dirk Nowitzki, who was whistled for the call) fouled him.
Checking the clock for shots at the ends of periods is one thing. Use of replays throughout the game would be counterproductive, just as it would in baseball, where the flow of the sport would be destroyed by timeouts to check umpires' calls.
We have to learn to live with a certain number of missed calls in a world where our vantage point from the television screen is far better than the officials' view on the court or the field of play.
And good teams, like the Italian soccer team, must do as they always have done, and that's overcome them.