Last night saw one of the sorriest games in the history of NFL… at least in my history. Yes, I am a Green Bay Packers fan, so I might be a little biased, but even if you weren’t a Packers fan, you can see how the Pack were robbed of their win over the Seattle Seahawks.
Picture this: Down to the wire… Seattle needs a Touchdown to win. Rookie QB (and Wisconsin alum) Russell Wilson drops back and launches a 40 yard “Hail Mary” into the end zone where it is caught by GB’s Greg Jennings and Seattle’s Golden Tate. WHO HAS THE BALL?!?! One judge is waving his arms above his head, while another is indicating touchdown.
The call is touchdown. Seattle wins 14-12.
The Seattle crowd goes WILD, a comeback win! Rookie QB against last year’s MVP!! Upon reviewing the video (which even a blind football newbie could see that JENNINGS had full possession of the ball, even as they crashed to the ground,) the officials up held the call on the field, giving the win to Seattle.
Why am I writing about football in a parenting/ religious/ current events blog?
The controversy about this call is not the play itself; it’s about the officials making the call. The NFL has been using replacement refs since the beginning of the season as the NFL owners and officials are locked in a labor dispute. If you were on social media last night, after the game, you would have seen comments like:
I hope the NFL Office pulls their heads out of their a** after this disguting display… Wtf
Complete and utter bullish**. Goddell better start negotiating with the refs. They don’t know what the eff they are doing.
That needs to be disputed by NFL commish to be set right. Everyone should just boycott nfl and not watch for the rest of the season f*** them management s**tards!!!
Until they bring the refs back I am not watching this season anymore…Boycott the NFL
It seems, across the board, that most people are pulling for the NFL refs. They are calling for the NFL owners (aka management) to give the refs what ever they want. That got me thinking… what do the refs want?
According to one site I found, the dispute is over money and that the owners wanted the refs to start taking more of an active role in protecting the players from injury. A starting NFL ref gets paid about $75K per year, working what would be considered part-time. Compare that to the average pay for an MLB umpire at $120K per year and you could have some hard feelings. Now it’s true, MLB umps call a larger quanitiy of games than an NFL ref, but we don’t seem to have an issue that the average NFL player makes more than an MLB player, do we?
So, the refs want more pay for working the same number of (or more) hours and more responsibility. Why does this sound familiar?
Oh, that’s right. Those were some of the reasons the Chicago Teachers Union went on strike two weeks ago. What’s funny is that, in the case of the teachers’ strike, most people were not siding with labor. Striking teachers are called lazy, selfish, not looking out for the best interests of the children. When NFL refs go on strike, the world comes to an end.
Is this where we are as a country? The fair calling of a game trumps the educational quality of our students? Or is it really as a friend of mine put it:
Our children’s education be DAMNED, but if you interfere with our football, well, that’s one step too far.
Tell me what you think!
______________________________________________________________
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
It’s hard to make judgments of which side is right without knowing all the facts and I haven’t done a ton of research, but to me I’d side with management in the case of the teachers and be sorta half and half on the NFL thing. I think the refs shouldn’t complain about salaries when we are in a depression and they are making like 3 times the poverty level (and more than my Hubby who has a doctorate!) But I do think if I were a ref I would be uncomfortable with trying to increase the role of the ref in monitoring player safety. That’s not the job of the refs, and it is ridiculous for the league, who is facing a major lawsuit for not handling athlete head injuries appropriately, to try to pass the buck to the refs on that issue.
With the teachers in Chicago, I guess I feel like they are, like the refs, complaining about salaries in a time when the economy is so tight NO ONE is getting raises, and they are doing it in a way that causes students to lose out on class time and parents to have to rearrange work schedules to provide care for kids who are supposed to be in school. Where were they all summer? Were the teachers of Chicago all camped out on the mayor’s steps, the school district lawn all summer? Did they attend and speak at every city council meeting this summer? Writing letters to the editor and calling in to local talk radio? Or were they enjoying their 3 months off and spending time with their family? I guess I feel like if this is such a crisis situation for them, then maybe they should’ve been doing something about it in a big way all summer when it wouldn’t have affected the students as much. The fact that they waited for the school year to start to strike and make a fuss makes me question where their priorities are.
First, your friend must be brilliant and beautiful . . .
Anyway, my real point is that there was a lot more than just salary going on with the Chicago teacher strike. Budget cuts were cutting a LOT more than just pay – important programs were lost and classroom teachers were expected to pick up the slack, and facilities were not being well-maintained (SHOCKING – so COMPLETELY UNLIKE every other school district in this country).
And, can we please – can we PLEASE agree, as a culture, that the education of our children is more important than any sport ever? Can we PLEASE place a higher priority on REAL THINGS?
One of the comments on your status, Karianna, said, “It all depends on how replaceable the people on strike are. Apparently, in the refs case, they’re not.”
So the teachers are?
I’m two months into my fifth year teaching, and I’ve been indescribably blessed to have worked in fairly low-crisis schools, with mostly supportive administrations, and rare behavior issues – and I’d challenge any of the armchair commentators calling those teachers greedy to trade jobs with me for a week. Heck, for a day.
Yeah, I almost used that comment, but yours was funnier!
People who side with the refs….well, I don’t know why they’re doing that. I think all sports personnel are overpaid – players, commentators, refs. It’s sports but it’s become a national religion. And this is coming from a gal who loves her football.
With regards to the Chicago teachers, they should have all been fired. Chicago teachers make more than any other teachers in the country and the benefits they were angling for had nothing to do with budget cuts to important programs and everything to do with bad teachers keeping their jobs (they wanted the districts to be required to fill vacancies with teachers who had already been fired, not with ‘new blood’). Not to mention, they were asking for a 32% raise during a time of hardship! If they cared about kids education, they would be demanding that money for programs – or they’d stop protesting voucher programs.
I agree that it’s completely upsetting that education gets the shaft while sports thrives. But sports are privatized – the market regulates it, and demand is high. Public schools are government owned and run and they do not respond to the market. The only way they could thrive is if they were at the top of the priority list for the government, but government has so many other responsibilities, they can’t manage it all efficiently. That’s why charter schools do better than public schools – they are subject to demand, and respond to actual market needs.
I often wonder that… would education be improved if it was privatized? Or would that force more educational disparity?