The rotten part of the game

I watched most of the football available this past weekend, and of it all, the first half of the Seahawks Bears game was my favorite. Pure bliss. Why? Not because I hate the field goal, nor because I enjoy interceptions turned receptions, nor even because I admire a tight spiral on a long ball. Rather, these thirty minutes were heaven because the entire officiating crew kept their obnoxious yellow flags in their pockets and nearly disappeared into the background while they let 'em play.

I don't know what pep talk the referee gave them at halftime, but they came out in the second half and reared their ugly heads. I won't catalog their indiscretions here, nor those of the three crews who were on duty in other games. That futile list would take me too far afield. And anyway, it hardly matters, does it? Officials are only human after all. Their mistakes are just part of the game.

I hate that phrase—part of the game. It makes me sick. Not to the stomach, mind you. Something less visceral and more spiritual. Every time I hear, "It's part of the game", I feel thousands of my brain cells dying in protest. I don't know how else to explain it. Why do we have games at all, if we're going to make them just as unfair as the rest of our lives?

What are officials for, after all? They're there to enforce the rules, right? And why do we need to enforce the rules? Why do we have rules in the first place? I don't know . . . maybe . . . to make the game fair? Admittedly, the most basic rules define the game, rather than regulating it, and a few rules are purely about safety. But any changes on top of those basics are about competitive balance—things like eligible receivers, illegal procedure, intentional grounding. Poor enforcement of the rules hurts competitive balance. Football remains competitive and interesting in spite of bad officiating, not because of it. Bad officiating is a part of the game as we know it, yes, but not as it has to be.

I want to make it clear that I'm not blaming the officials themselves for this rotten part of the game. I'm going to assume that they're more or less doing as well as they can. That's exactly the problem. Their best just isn't good enough. And here's why: football is a chaotic game. One little change along the way, and you can alter the final score by fourteen points or more. Say one team has it in the red zone and fumbles, recovered by the defense and run back for a touchdown. Now, if that play is called back for whatever reason—offsides, down by contact, incomplete pass (by the "arm moving forward" rule), etc.—and the original offense proceeds to score a touchdown, we have 7-0 instead of 0-7. That's a fourteen-point swing!

This kind of thing happens all the time. Watch football playing What If? with the possibilities, and your mind will quickly shut down in frustration at the exponential explosion. The right outcome depends on the officials making all the right calls along the way, and that almost never happens.

I know what you're going to say now. Someone always suggests that it all evens out. In basketball, maybe it does, most of the time. But football is too volatile. Even one single mistake is enough to drastically skew the result in one team's favor. You have to be suspicious at least of any game whose margin of victory is less than fourteen points. Ouch! That's almost all of them.

Those of you still skeptical will now say that the players just need to overcome these slight disadvantages. Or maybe you won't. Back when you were thinking in terms of a few yards, or even a few points, that didn't seem like too much to ask. But two extra touchdowns? Let's not be irrational. And that's just to make up for one mistake. What if you get hit by two? Then, you've been squawked.

So what do I propose? I'm not advocating abolition of officiating in the NFL. But I do think fewer responsibilities for the officials and simpler rules to enforce are an absolute necessity. We'll make detailed suggestions in the coming weeks. There is still hope for fairness in football, but it's hanging by a chin strap.