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| Authored by John McMullen - 8th February, 2006 - 5:36 pm
 For years I have felt like a lone voice in the wind decrying the appalling officiating crews that dot the NFL landscape. But I always got the same tired, old cliches in response to my criticism ......Only losers complain........Good teams overcome bad breaks.......Officials are human, they make mistakes................yada...yada...yada.
Then I thought to myself -- Maybe I am a loser. I mean good teams do overcome bad breaks and officials are human.
Plus, at least I saw light at the end of the tunnel and I could sleep at night secure in the knowledge that when Tag?s hatchet men screwed up the Super Bowl in front of 90 million people, there would be change.
There would have to be........Right?
Well......Forget it........The NFL could care less about their own game and you, the fan. Worse yet, you won?t do anything about it.
The league has an interesting, dysfunctional, almost abusive relationship going on with its followers.
No matter how badly the NFL treats you, they know you are coming back and you know what? -- They are right.
Like a woman trapped with a bullying boyfriend or a child cowering at the hands of a tyrannical father......They know you are trapped. ...You love this game and you are going nowhere.
So with billions of dollars flowing in, where?s the impetus for change?
The arrogance of the league is so astounding that it enables the omnipotent sports giant to contradict things the rest of us saw with our own eyes.
The CIA calls it plausible deniability and the NFL does it better than any covert agent ever could.
It starts simply enough. When a blown call has no impact on the outcome of a game, The NFL gratuitously admits their mistake (see Pittsburgh-Indianapolis) but when a call or calls directly effects the result, the league spins tales taller than the Empire State Building.
The NFL will then point to a game in which they admitted a faux pas and calmly refer to it while defending the same ineptness in games where it changed the outcome. It?s actually a brilliant ploy.
We all know that Super Bowl XL was horribly officiated. In fact I have yet to come across one individual, and that includes a number of Pittsburgh zealots, who thinks the game was ?properly officiated.?
Yet, that?s exactly the term the NFL used as they patted all 90 million of its viewers on their heads and told them to be quiet and go sit quietly in the corner.
?The game was properly officiated. Including, as in most NFL games, some tight plays that produced disagreement about the calls made by the officials,? NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said in a statement.
You have to feel for Aiello, a nice guy whose main job description evidently includes lying and destroying his own credibility on a weekly basis.
As a member of the media, I have access to endless charts, graphs and tables that conveniently tell me how popular the NFL is.
That?s the problem.
Until you, the fan, start fighting back and ignoring a league where the outcome is as likely to be determined by middle-aged men in striped shirts as the players who perform on the field, nothing will ever change.
It?s too late for me....I?ve made my bed and I have to cover this mess of a league.
Buy you still have a chance......Go to a museum, take up golf. Get away while you still can.
Like an addict, the NFL has to admit there is a problem before they can fix it.
And, until you stop enabling...................they never will.
-You can reach John McMullen at JMcmullen1@comcast.net |
