Meet the old refs, same as faux refs
After Green Bay completed the pass that put Sunday evening’s game out of reach, referee Jeff Triplette got all Leslie-Nielsenumpiring-at-Anaheim-Stadium with the call.
“Result of the play is a first dooooounnn,” Triplette schmaltzed.
This wasn’t showmanship. This was a feeble attempt at an apology. It didn’t work.
The unionized part-timers returned to work this week, to widespread fawning. The star of the bunch, Ed Hochuli, was especially feted by CBS. His whole crew introduced themselves, along with college affiliations (the guy from “THE” University of Buffalo drew audible groans from onlookers).
It was a great moment in U.S. labour relations. Rich men who herd even richer men being congratulated by marginally less rich people. If Engels had been there, he would’ve torched the place.
The good vibes lasted about seven hours or so, until the end of Green Bay-New Orleans. That’s when Wisconsin turned on Triplette and balance was restored. You’re not supposed to like referees of any stripe. They are the villains. That’s why they’re so well paid.
If they cared about accuracy in football, they’d let machines make decisions. If they cared about player safety in football, they wouldn’t play football.
Green Bay arrived nursing the most notorious officiating grudge in recent memory.
They left wondering what sort of fruit basket they need to send to the concrete box where retired football referees are left to disintegrate.
For two weeks running, the Packers have been the victims of atrocious officiating. All of which suggests that Roger Goodell was right: replacement officials didn’t ruin football. Officials, sans modifier, have been screwing things up without interruption and will continue to do so.
Ironically, Triplette was greeted with a standing ovation at Lambeau Field. They’d be standing again by the end of the game. Luckily for Triplette, it wasn’t Pet Rock Night at the park.
Triplette and his crew were on the hook for two awful calls in the late going that, were it not for the Saints’ own festering incompetence, would have turned the game.
The first was a reviewed thirddown catch by Saints tight end Jimmy Graham. This was far clearer than the jump ball that ended the Monday nighter. Graham had overrun the pass and was trying to gather it in against his hip as he fell. It clearly bounced off the ground as he hit the turf. Somehow, Triplette fever-dreamed that Graham had possession.
New Orleans went on from there to take their first lead.
With New Orleans trailing late by a single point, Saints kickoff returner Darren Sproles had the ball knocked out of his hands deep in Saints territory. That was the game, that play. Triplette’s crew judged that Sproles was down by contact when the ball slipped his grasp. Sproles was ramrod straight at the moment of impact — that was the problem.
They show replays inside NFL stadiums. The crowd reacted by jeering Triplette. He can thank God he happened to be getting it this wrong in Wisconsin. In Oakland, they would have wandered onto the field en masse and pulled him apart like a deboned turkey. If Triplette is going to keep working, the NFL needs to consider fortuitous scoreboard “malfunctions” in the interests of public order. Triplette wasn’t the only factor breaking New Orleans’ way. With Green Bay about to put the game away in the third, Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers was poked in the eye. With the ball sitting nearly on the Saints’ goal line, backup Graham Harrell came out for the first (and perhaps now only) snap of his NFL career. He stubbed one foot into the other, fell flat on his face and caused a fum- ble. Then he left. FOX didn’t even bother showing him (presumably) weeping into a towel on the sidelines. Yet the Saints still couldn’t close. In the final minutes, they kicked a field goal to take the lead, were moved back on a holding penalty and then flubbed the next attempt. Given that voodoo owns a vacation home in New Orleans, we don’t want to start giving mystical advice, but have they considered a curse? The Saints are now 0-4, right down there with Cleveland. New Orleans will host the Super Bowl in just over four months’ time. During the pre-season, you could hear the strings building underneath the chorus. This felt like the team’s and the city’s Great Redemptive Moment. Now the Saints must be seriously thinking about the first pick in next year’s draft. They are playing that badly.
It may be the Super Bowl itself. You have reach back 12 seasons before you find a Super Bowl host that’s made the playoffs (Tampa Bay in 2001). Saddled with what may be the most passive defence in the league right now, the Saints won’t be breaking that goose.
Following the 28-27 win, the Packers look to have righted their own listing ship. It was that sort of weekend in the NFL — losers losing, traditional powers reasserting themselves. A return to normalcy.
That was most true of the officiating. The regulars weren’t that much better. But only by virtue of returning, they can now fade from the storyline.