Wednesday, September 26, 2012

This Is An NFL Replacement Referee?

From the Reno Gazette Journal: Small wonder why NFL replacement official Lance Easley is considered public enemy No. 1 this week -- and maybe for the entire season in Green Bay, Wis.
Working as the side judge Monday night, the longtime Southern California high school and junior college official signaled the winning catch by receiver Golden Tate in the Seattle Seahawks' last-play, 14-12 win against the Green Bay Packers -- a call the world believes he blew by turning an obvious interception into a touchdown.
But why was he in the NFL?
He wasn't deemed good enough to become a Division I college official this summer, according to Karl Richins and his staff of Division I college officials at Stars and Stripes Academy for Football Officials in Salt Lake City.
"I got to know Lance at a June academy I worked at in Reno and when he came to my academy in July," Richins said. "He's a very polite, good Christian gentleman, a good father to his son, Daniel, who was at my academy as well.
"But was Lance ready to work at the NFL level? Absolutely not."
Richins' staff determined that Easley, vice president of small business banking at Bank of America in Santa Maria, Calif., wasn't ready for Division I, the highest level of college officiating, never mind the much faster NFL game.
Richins said the biggest mistake Easley made was agreeing to become a replacement official in the first place. He said Easley had never officiated at a level higher than Division III and never voiced a desire to reach the NFL.  http://www.rgj.com/article/20120926/SPORTS12/120926020/Official-who-called-controversial-Monday-Night-Football-touchdown-trained-Reno?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE&nclick_check=1
Should this guy been given the job of an official in the NFL?  Probably not, but then we don't know how much training and testing Easley and the NFL did between the time he left that academy and when he started calling games.
Further, as much as this call hurt, if Easley made other bad calls during another game, we would have heard about them by now, so I doubt Easley has been doing that bad of a job of being an official.
The thing that frustrates me about this lockout is that a lot of people who are talking about this thinks the issues are all about money.  While some of it is- the pension and the fairness of officials getting a fully funded pension while other NFL employees have 401K plans, the other issues are making the officials full time when they already have full time jobs and adding around 21 new officials which could cut into the officials salaries.
I have stated many times on this blog that this is one labor dispute I side with labor, but the officials have not been that horrible compared to the regular officials. 
Remember, the regular officials have blown many calls including blowing a coin flip.  The regular ref's have also misapplied rules and blown replay booth calls.  They are not saints.
But no team has lost a game strictly because of the referees, no one has been hurt because of the referees, most of the those complaining are the liberal media along with players and coaches on losing teams and please remember, this is just a game.

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