skycake10B

Football is just an impossible sport to officiate well, especially at the speed of the pro game. Even if refs don’t miss a single obvious call, there will be plenty of borderline calls for people to complain about that are just a subjective decision.

You’re ignoring the point being made here: what, concretely, do you do to improve officiating? You can’t just fire bad refs because the guys you replace them with are going to be worse.

How do you hold them accountable? It’s an impossible job and they’re still the best in the world at it. There’s no one better to replace them with, and if you try to replace everyone who fucks up you’ll immediately run out of qualified officials.

The refs don’t want that and the NFL doesn’t have the leverage to force them

You’re right about these folks being the best, and it took a long time and a lot of effort to get there.

That’s exactly my point though. College refs are, by and large, even worse than NFL refs. Who do you replace the bad refs with when you don’t renew their contracts?

The only thing I think is missing from this is that defenses have gotten even better in recent years about disguising looks pre-snap and rotating into different looks at the snap. Coaches that aren’t using a good amount of motion to try to reveal coverages pre-snap are doing their QBs a huge disservice.

I think this is going to be the next big debate in NFL statistics/gameplanning. The problem is that even the worst passing teams average as much/more yards per pass attempt than the best rushing teams average per rush. A team like the Panthers is only averaging 4.2 NY/A passing, but they’re also only 3.8 YPC rushing.

You do absolutely need to be able and willing to run the ball, but I think right now it’s hard for teams to figure out the right balance between the inherent inefficiency of running the ball with the need to keep the defensive line honest.

It’s hard to summarize it briefly, but yeah, it has to do with either following all the way across (usually means man, or at least some form of man), or watching the way they shift to hopefully learn something about the zone they’re playing.

How to handle motion while still disguising coverage is just another move in the game of chess for the defense.