Stripes and AWAY!!!

I gotta agree with Jay Mariotti of the Chicago Sun-Times. While there's a myriad of reasons why umpires are still in a position to miss calls in baseball games as important as the ones in the World Series, pro football has no excuse. They have the benefit of replay, they have more than enough money to compensate individuals to be full-time referees, so why the continued fuck-ups?

In Super Bowl XL, or Super Bowl "40" to those of you under ten, one particular blown call got to me, the first Pittsburgh touchdown in the 2nd quarter to go up 7-3 shortly before halftime. I don't know about you, but the only thing I could NOT see in the replays we as an audience had the benefit of seeing was QB Ben Roethlisberger actually getting the ball across the plane.


It's only because of a line judges knee-jerk reaction to rule the approach to the goal line a touchdown that it even held up even after review. You can't overturn a call if there's no conclusive evidence to do so. Unfortunately this does not take into account the fact that there was not any replay that actually showed Big Ben for sure touching the goal line. Am I the only one who thinks replay seems to benefit BAD calls rather than undoing GOOD calls in crucial situations?
How amazing would that have been to see Bill Leavy (ALWAYS a bad sign when you know a ref's name) say to himself "Hey, you know what? I don't see a thing in this replay that shows me that a touchdown was scored." Holy shit, was a concept!!


The fortieth Super Bowl played was a steaming turd to begin with. It's too bad the NFL referees made such a generous contribution to that. As the Commander-in-Chimp would say, "Only in America." With so many blunders and discrepancies, it was a game only the president could love.