Officiating In The NFL and Fans

The officials aren't perfect and need to be made full time employees in the NFL. The league needs to do better job at training the officials and the league needs to do a better job at enforcing rules and oversight. Like when no pass interference calls were overturned because officials were too prideful and came off as refusing to make changes out of spite.

Fans are funny why it comes to the refs. They don't want the officials involved, especially at the end of a game. Well that is unless it's their team, than fans are hypocritical and want the calls in their favor. And officials don't want to be responsible for making calls at the end of a game out of fear of the backlash from fans, even though it occasionally happens.

Here's two examples. During 2021 the Patriots fanbase complained about penalties. They did it often. They were some of the biggest complainants over officiating, wanting the refs to just let them play. However, one couldn't watch a game and without listening to Patriots fans bitch about Judon getting held and no flags being called. As I heard from non Patriots fans in Rochester, "don't like when you don't get the calls."

The second example was in 2019 during the playoffs. The Vikings clearly had an unnecessary roughing call against the Saints. The official didn't call it because they didn't want to interject themselves and be responsible for the outcome. The penalty was as obvious as the color of the sky on a clear day. The officials were in a no win because either way, they were gonna anger fans.

Two different examples of how officiating is done and how fans reactions can impact the game. Fans complaining got us the pass interference review that lasted one season. And the worry about fan reaction was most certainly why the call in the playoffs wasn't overturned. Yes the officiating needs to improve in football but as fans we need to take accountability when calls don't go our way and to remember the officials are human and just as imperfect as the fan bitching and whinging.

Some of us fans belong behind bars for our reactions to calls or no-calls. And some of us are down right uncivilized when it comes to that situation. Yes they have a job to do but in this situation, people are getting mad over a kids game. This isn't the same as how lack of sports can effect society or how it's the duty of entertainers to use their platform to call out things that are morally wrong. This is just bad calls from human error. Something truly not important.