Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Frustrations with the zebras

I have been accused, as recently as ten minutes ago, of being the kind of fan that just can’t be pleased. The Packers could win a game by 10,000 points, complete an undefeated season, win back-to-back-to-back-to-back Super Bowls and I’d still have something to bitch about. My pal Mike calls it “getting all Ditka over it”. And there is certainly a lot of truth to that: I not only want my team to win, I want them to win pretty. Nobody is playing better than Aaron Rodgers right now, but I have plenty to whine about regarding the Packer defense. They have yet to put four quarters together in any game this year.

But a lot of my frustrations come from things that could be and should be done better. Take the officiating in the Falcons game on Sunday. Here we have a crew of experienced, highly trained officials and they do stupid things like flag AJ Hawk for 15 yards for retaliating after getting popped in the back after the whistle. Yes, I know, the second guy always gets the foul but if you can see the second guy, you should be able to see the first guy, right? How about the “too many men in the huddle” flag? Tom Crabtree trots off the field and the yellow hankie comes out. Note to refs: It’s not a huddle until Rodgers steps in and he was five yards away at the time the flag was thrown. Or how about the debacle on the punt to Cobb: The guy calls fair catch (late, admittedly, but he still called it) and gets hit. Flags go flying and Packer fans are looking forward to some yardage getting tacked on. No, sorry, we’re going to call you evil Packer players for having too many men on the field…while the punt team goes off and the offense comes on…like they have to. And you can see it was quite the infraction when NBC actually played the exchange in slow motion, showing 11 guys leaving the field and 11 guys coming on. OH, THE HUMANITY!!!

So, yes, I admit it: I’m a hard-to-please fan (what? 5-0? IS THAT ALL???) but when I see crap like that piss-poor performance by an NFL refereeing crew, it rises my frustration level by a factor of ten.

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