It's Official...

Professional officials are supposed to be just as any other professional, the best of the best.  And to be completely honest, for the most part they are.  Yet it seems lately, in some of the largest moments and the biggest ways they've come up short. 

Now before the zebra hunting begins, let me say this.  In order to evaluate officiating you have to be unbiased so here's what I want you to do.  Watch a game where you have absolutely no rooting interest.  The first Big East or Big Ten game on a typical college basketball Saturday will work or for most of you (sadly) any NBA game.  See how much you notice the officiating.  Chances are you won't.  As I said, for the most part they're pretty good.

Yet on the biggest stage in American sports, the men in stripes didn't quite see things that we're black and white.  This year's Super Bowl was poorly officiated throughout and they missed a few calls to me at the end of both halves that could have changed the outcome of the game. 

Here were the big ones:

1. The way I saw it James Harrison's "greatest play in Super Bowl history" was a fantastic 99-yard return.  No his knee didn't hit, Larry Fitzgerald was under him the whole time. But if that's you're argument you aren't very well schooled on the NFL rule book.  The elbow counts just as a knee does and the way I saw it Harrison's elbow hit BEFORE the ball crossed and thus it was no TD.  They also missed an obvious clip on the play that sprung Harrison for a good portion of the run which would've off set the Cardinals penalty on the play and thus I believe either ended the half if there was no time left or given the ball back to the Cards with a repeat of down.
2. On Santonio Holmes amazing game winning touchdown grab he celebrated by doing a reenactment of the Lebron powder throw using the ball as a prop which is automatically a 15 yard penalty.  
3. This leaves chronologically only the final drive.  The kickoff should have been from the 15 because of the Holmes penalty that wasn't called.  Fast forward to the last play where I firmly believe the wrong call was made.  I thought it was the tuck rule meaning it should've been an incomplete that.  So if you add the 15 yards from the Holmes penalty that wasn't with the Farrior penalty on the last play that was and the Cardinals have first and Super Bowl at the 15 yard line with the best jump ball receiver in football in Larry Fitzgerald on the field. 

I'm not saying that the officials cost the Cardinals the game.  If they had figured out a way to cover #10 in black and gold they would have been just fine but they didn't and thus he went to Disney World.  That being said this article isn't about the Black and Gold, it's about the black and white so I digress back to that.

Pro sports are played at an incredible speed and thus officiating them is near impossible.  Yet for the most part referees, umpires, and anyone else who wears an officials uniform do it very well very often.  We want two things from our referees: to be fair and to be consistent.  If we get those two things, win or lose, I think fans will be happy, with the referees anyway.  Fans often blame the refs when its not their fault and to those fans, suck it up and shut up and look to your coaches and more importantly to your players to get it done.  Referees are supposed to call games not decide them and they do.  

It's the old cliche players play and coaches coach with a new twist, refs ref.  So to the players, do your job and play.  To the coaches, do your job and coach.  And to the refs, do your job, ignore the players and coaches and referee fairly and consistently.  I think that's a call we can all agree on.