Washington Sports Personalities Have Strong Opinions About the NFL Referees Lockout

Do you remember the 2000 movie
The Replacements, starring Keanu Reeves as one of a ragtag group of players who replace the pros during
an NFL players strike? It’s based on real events from 1987, features a fictional Washington
Sentinels team, and was filmed in Baltimore. It was an entertaining screwball comedy,
the exact opposite of what you might call the high drama that is enfolding with the
current NFL referees lockout. It’s unlikely there will be a movie made about the current
chaos, but who knows? At least the movie version of
The Replacements had a happy ending, and Keanu got the girl.

No one has a clue when and how the impasse will conclude between the NFL owners and
the NFL Referees Association, but there’s a loud cry for it to be soon, especially
after the debacle that ended last night’s game between the Green Bay Packers and the
Seattle Seahawks. The Seahawks won 14-12, but the popular opinion—among sportswriters,
sportscasters, and the public—is that the Packers were robbed of a victory when the
replacement refs declared an endzone play as a Seahawks TD rather than a Green Bay
interception (or a penalty that should have nullified the play altogether). The blowback Monday night was instantaneous, leading to a Tuesday of
more rage, frustration, recrimination, and debate.
Kevin Sheehan, host of ESPN 980’s
The Sports Fix, called it “the tipping point.” He’s not alone in that view.

“I’d be surprised if this game last night isn’t the straw that breaks the camel’s
back,” says local NBC sportscaster
Dan Hellie. He says the owners had been inclined not to budge in the contract dispute with the
refs because the lockout had not cost any team a game. “But now that’s happened,”
he says.
Eric Bickel, of the daily
Sports Junkies on 106.7 the Fan, says, “The season is already stained. Ruined. Can you imagine being a
Packers fan? God forbid they miss the playoffs by a game.”

But both Hellie and Bickel don’t think the NFL will back down, because the 31 team
owners don’t have to back down. Ticket sales, TV ratings, and profits are strong.
“The only way the NFL would hear is if fans turned off their TVs and stopped watching,”
says Hellie. “But people are still going to watch. The [lockout] won’t affect NFL
revenue one bit.”

Bickel is much harder on the owners. “These guys are ruthless businessmen. If they
can break the officials’ union, they will do it. They are pushing around the officials
because they can. It’s classic bullying,” he says. “If [NFL commissioner
Roger]
Goodell had real respect from the owners, if they respected his opinion, and he cared about
the integrity of the League, he could get this done.”

The replacement refs have been at the center of some notorious episodes in the first
three regular-season games of the Washington Redskins, costing the team in a variety
of ways. In last Sunday’s game against the Cincinnati Bengals, Redskins coaches were
perplexed when the refs resolved a disputed call by incorrectly placing the ball at
25 yards back when the penalty was 20 yards. It cost the Redskins a chance at tying
the game. Offensive coordinator
Kyle Shanahan blew his stack at one of the officials, who hit him with an unsportsmanlike conduct
penalty. Shanahan has since said he “acted in the wrong way,” and the NFL is deciding
whether to fine or suspend him. Sheehan called the 25-yard penalty something “nobody had ever heard of.”

Wide receiver
Josh Morgan has also received an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty that cost the team important
yardage. In the losing game against the St. Louis Rams, in a fit of frustration aimed
at the refs, he threw the ball at a Rams player. The 15-yard penalty was the difference
between a possible field goal and an impossible one.

“On Sunday, the Redskins recovered a fumble in the third quarter and a guy picked
it up and ran into the endzone and the refs said he was down, but he wasn’t, and it
wasn’t reviewed,” recalls
Dan Steinberg, who writes the
Washington Post’s DC Sports Blog. “That was an egregious mistake, and the broadcast glossed over
it.” Hellie says it might take a player injury for the impasse to end, but Steinberg
says that already has happened and with no result. “There was a guy in the Raiders
game who got knocked unconscious, and there wasn’t a call or a penalty.”

For the NFL referees, the issue is a pension that historically was part of their contract.
The owners are balking at continuing the pension, opting instead for a 401K plan.
Every sports reporter we talked to felt the issue was relatively minor in terms of
cost versus profit, and that if both sides gave a little, the lockout would end quickly.
“This is a league that generates $9 billion in revenue, and they are $2 million apart,”
says Bickel.

“These refs are part-time employees who are getting more than $40,000 a year put into
a pension plan,” says Hellie. “All the other NFL employees have now gone to a 401K,
like most of America.” He says the refs are paid on average $140,000 to $150,000 per
season. “The vast majority of NFL refs have other jobs as doctors, salesmen, partners
in law firms, things like that. For a lot of them it’s a hobby.” Sheehan says, “There
are many companies eliminating pensions all over the country for full-time employees,
and these refs are part-time.” That doesn’t mean he’s not sympathetic. “Everybody
wants the refs back.”

Is there a sense of piling onto the seemingly hapless replacement refs? “I don’t know,”
says Bickel. “I feel for them because they are out of their element. They are competing
at a level they are not prepared for. Some of them referee seventh-grade games. I’m
sure they are trying their best, but they are just not qualified.”

Fans, as always, are left on the sidelines without many options, beyond calling in
to sports radio shows and ranting over social media or a beer at the local pub. Refusing
to go to the stadiums would be dramatic but wouldn’t hurt the owners’ profits, because
most tickets are sold in advance. The players likely have no taste for aggressive
action. “After what they went through last year with the walk-out, I don’t think the
players or their association would suggest anything but to go out and play the calls
and let the owners work it out,” says Sheehan.

Until there is a resolution, football fans are faced with predictably unpredictable
games that seem to grow longer each week as the disputes escalate. It may be a new
unfortunate component of the game: tuning in to watch the chaos as officials argue
with the players, the coaches, and most often each other. Hellie observes, “I’ve seen
better communication between men and women than between these refs.”

Carol Ross Joynt