Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the NFL, didn’t end up in Stupidville overnight. Neither did his owners. They just look stupid now, as if they all just showed up from throwing flags in the old Lingerie League, as if they are all as bad as their own replacement referees.
And the longer they go with replacement officials working NFL games — games for which they are spectacularly unqualified — the worse they look, the more they make a mockery of a $9 billion-a-year sport, continuing to lock out their regular officials over what amounts to tipping money.
RELATED: NEWSER AND CHEESHEAD SEAN BRENNAN OUTRAGED OVER STOLEN WIN
Always in the past, every big dispute between management and labor in sports, you would see fans lining up on both sides of the debate, yelling about players or owners. Not this time. They all love the same refs — that means real refs — they once hated.
RELATED: EVEN THE LINGERIE LEAGUE DIDN'T WANT THESE GUYS
You know what passes for good news these days in the National Football League? That there hasn’t been a riot yet, something out of European soccer, because of one of these blown calls. Sunday night in Baltimore, a questionable field goal in the last seconds is called good, so that ending went against the road team, the Patriots.
MYERS: ALL THE NFL CARES ABOUT IS MAKING MONEY
Then came Monday night in Seattle, mall-cop refs stealing a game from the Packers because of an obvious blown call at the end, the mall cops clearly afraid, being in Seattle, to overturn that call.
One of these days, and soon if Goodell and the NFL owners don’t bring back their regular officials, one of these endings will go against the home team. Then it won’t just be a breakdown in civility in the NFL, it will be a breakdown of law and order.
This is no longer about saving face, for a commissioner who has done plenty of good for his league, or for owners who look no better than greedy headbangers in a dispute that is about, what, $3 million and change per year? No, this is about saving the integrity of this season, because there was no integrity in Seattle when “Monday Night Football” became “Monday Night Raw.”
Here is what an English friend of mine had to say about all that the day after:
“From London to Lahore, whether it’s soccer or cricket, most professional sports administrators I know hold up the NFL as the absolute pinnacle of sporting excellence,” he said. “Training, marketing, ownership rights, TV rights and media relationships, they believe the organization is best-in-class. Every major sports franchise has its problems and fallouts. But this has seriously damaged the NFL brand and shattered their image of invincibility. And proven that, despite their zillion-dollar business, they’re human after all — and make bad decisions.”
