In America’s game, money talks loudest
Two weeks from tonight, the new NFL season will get underway at the New Jersey home of the Super Bowl champions, the New York Giants.
It’s looking increasingly likely that they’ll be doing it under the questionable supervision of a ragtag bunch of replacement officials.
At the moment, it’s a relatively minor distraction. Most fans are talking about Peyton Manning’s neck, Tim Tebow’s arm, Chad Johnson’s divorce and Maurice Jones-Drew’s state of mind.
There is still some time for the league to work out a deal with their refs but this is the second off-season in a row that a work stoppage has threatened to make a farce out of America’s favourite game.
It was proven last year during the player lockout that nothing could ever get in the way of the dollar-spewing juggernaut which dominates each and every American Sunday from mid-September through to the New Year.
And it will be proven again in a fortnight. The officials are vital and their experience is immeasurable but the NFL has never even contemplated the alternative. This has forced the league to improvise, which means that anyone not overly familiar with the lower tiers of the college football system or indeed the Lingerie Football League (yeah, get to know it because it will have a presence in Ireland soon), will feel as though they have been handing out the black-and-white candystriped uniforms to anyone who can blow a whistle.
Not exactly the case, of course, but the scrutiny on NFL games is such that nobody who has been parachuted onto the turf of the professional game in the US could possibly be prepared for the intensity of those three-and-a-bit hours of crashing helmets.
What started as a lighthearted distraction from the banality of pre-season NFL games — one miked-up referee announced a decision for Arizona during a game between Baltimore and Atlanta, for example — has become an alarming portent for chaos.
One bright spot was the inclusion of a female referee for the first time, Shannon Eastin enjoying the best night imaginable by going completely unnoticed with five solid calls.
It’s just a pity that she broke the barrier in such messy circumstances.
Even if there is agreement reached with the 121 members of the NFLRA, getting back down to business won’t exactly be straightforward. The league hasn’t seen hide nor hair of them in six months and when they do show up, there will be security checks, physicals and rules updates to trudge through.
Meanwhile, the 136 back-ups are gathering in Dallas yesterday and today desperately trying to get to grips with their enormous task.
“I don’t care how many clinics you have,” Mike Pereira, formerly the NFL’s director of officiating, told USA Today. “You’re trying to replace 1,460 years of experience with zero years of experience. You can have clinics every day for the next three weeks. It’s not going to have them ready.”
On and on the dispute rolls, the referees wanting more of a pay rise, less fiddling with their pensions and none of the new blood which the NFL is keen to install in their pool of officials.
There is also a reluctance among most of the part-time referees to go full-time, as requested by league chiefs.
Chicago Bears punter Adam Podlesh has pointed to the dark side of this potential calamity — the chances of serious injury are increased dramatically without a strong neutral presence.
“That’s the concern for the players,” he told ESPN. “Are they going to be able to keep up with the speed of the game and are they going to make the right calls that are going to make the players feel safe?”
Switching briefly to another code of football with its own disciplinary issue, it’s worth noting that the Ulster club in the Bay Area of Northern California won the San Francisco senior football final on Sunday afternoon.
Last summer, their season was thrown into turmoil by the assault which threatened Mark Mc Govern’s life. While he recuperated, his team-mates made it to the final knowing victory would be some consolation for the fate that had befallen the Fermanagh native. They were prevented from doing so that day but made up for the disappointment against Young Irelanders/St Brendans, beating them 1-14 to 1-7.
It was an emotional day, by all accounts, but if ever you needed reminding of the importance of strong refereeing, it’s the long road that particular club has travelled back to success.
* john.w.riordan@gmail.com Twitter: JohnWRiordan
