Three months later…
The National Football League finally decides to end their preposterous, game integrity destroying, lockout of the NFL Referees Association early Thursday morning. After the three-month lockout, a new agreement is in place and will be for eight years, the longest contract between the league and the officials in NFL history.
Veteran official, Ed Hochuli, must be pumped up!
(The obligatory Ed Hochuli gym joke. Check.)
We won’t have to worry about dozens of flag throwing meetings between the officials that send games deep into the night until the 2020 season. That’s a relief. I’m not sure what the football loving public would do if there was another player tripping, interception stealing, officiating fiasco any time soon.
Although I’m sure that in the year or two leading up to this contract expiring, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell will have a better contingency plan in place. He won’t recruit scab-erees that were cast off by the lingerie football league. I mean, they may have been distracted by one boob or another, but still. If you can’t cut it there . . .
All in all, I kinda feel bad for the replacement refs.
Let’s not forget. These guys had a crash course in a rule book they never read before. They weren’t surrounded by unrecruited college athletes or scantily clad women posed for wardrobe malfunctions. They were thrust into a whirlwind of athleticism, speed and power they couldn’t have adequately been prepared to succeed in. They were ridiculed handsomely for it and paid peanuts to withstand it. Ah well. I guess they got more than their 15 minutes of infamy.
So as the REAL referees get back on the field this weekend, remember to not take them for granted . . . yeah, okay. Who am I kidding? I can already hear chants of “you didn’t deserve a raise!” as soon as a perceived bad call is made.
But hey, anyone could do their job, right?
