Packers, Seahawks Controversy: Blame the NFL And Roger Goodell

Asking sports fans — rabid sports fans at that, fresh off of getting screwed royally– to act and think rationally is as hard as trying to subdue a gorilla throwing hand grenades. But after this crippling mistake by replacement officials in Monday Night’s Packers-Seahawks debacle, we need to take a deep breath and collectively step back for a moment and collect our thoughts.

Don’t shoot the messengers, even if they are illiterate and can’t read the message they’re sending.

That’s exactly what’s going on in the NFL right now, as Roger Goodell is hiding behind defenseless and helpless replacement refs who are taking 99 percent of the torching from fans angry about their blown calls. In all actuality, we should be grabbing out torches and pitchforks and heading to NFL league offices, not tossing stones at the monsters Goodell created and released.

There is no excuse for how bad these refs are but we are glazing over a fact we are repeatedly yelling at the television every Sunday: these guys are unqualified to officiate NFL games. This is like getting mad at your kid for writing on the wall in ink when it was the father that set everything up; Goodell is using replacements as pawns in his game with the real officials and this needs to be realized and ended.

NFL fans are known for their loyalty, but they need to lay down their arms and unite against Goodell, not these officials. They can’t help the fact that the NFL is stiff arming the real refs and are locking them out. If it wasn’t for these officials out there now, there wouldn’t be any football at all, so at the very least they’re brining you the game they don’t fully understand.

Yes, these refs are awful and it’s finally crossed the line into their blown calls deciding games — that’s the final straw. If you’re blaming the refs, you’re wasting your time and your anger will fall on deaf ears. The issue is bigger than them, they’re just the guys sent to the front line by a tyrant. What happens next after games are being decided by bad calls by unqualified refs?

Players getting hurt, that’s what.

This is the warning shot fired in this battle. This was just a game, it holds no long term barring to anyone’s health or well-being. Maybe some guys are going to need a drink after this, but they’re not concussed and their health is fine.

Everyone is in an uproar over the blown call that won the game for Seattle but that hate needs to extend further than just the call. Goodell can’t afford to wait until players start having their seasons — and God forbid careers— affected or ended by the incompetence happening on the field now.

Mike Turico gets his rocks off thumbing his nose at the officials and he’s part of the problem — most commentators are. They’re placing too much emphasis on the officials and not enough heat on Goodell.

This is an ugly mess that’s only going to get uglier. With the media stance now seemingly shifting from anti-ref rhetoric to full on anti-Goodell talk, the NFL is only going to retreat further into it’s rock hard shell.

If the NFL wasn’t about to be bullied by refs, do you really think they’re going to cave because ESPN is after them? To them, that would be even worse than caving to the officials, as caving to them showed the officials had power over the league. By caving now, the NFL would show that the media can sway them, but being the hard-lined and greedy white billionaires they are, they’re still missing the point if they think that.

It’s the fans they should be concerned about. Without their backing, there is no NFL; there’s no money, there’s no fame there’s no business. The NFL pretends to give the fans a voice, by setting up message boards on the official league site, making NFL games more interactive and so on but they won’t listen to their pleas for sanity — the most important input that fans have ever given the NFL.

Goodell has been on a crusade to improve the integrity of the game, but to put it bluntly, he looks like an idiot. He’s cut off his face to spite his nose.

If you thought the replacement refs were the problem, you couldn’t be more wrong. Don’t direct your anger at these officials, instead fire those heat seeking missiles of hate where they belong and will do the most damage: Roger Goodell and the NFL.