re: Does all the poor officiating make you tune out sports?

The lack of consistency and accountability in officiating is the single biggest thing that drives me crazy and has me not wanting to spend a dime on the product.

I’m a diehard Saints fan and I am furious as are we all. This is beyond that though. It’s not just the Saints, not even just the NFL...this extends to all levels and even other sports. Officiating is just BAD BAD BAD these days.

My opinion is it’s a combination of things.
All the rule changes to largely benefit offense and “protect players” plays a role. It’s hard for officials to know every situation that could occur for a penalty.
The speed of the game and athletic abilities of the players is off the charts which is hard to keep up with in real time.
Over reliance on replay to fix their mistakes.
Referees not held accountable and players/coaches are unable to call them out or risk a fine is just baffling.
Then we come to the corruptness of leagues and crews. Seems to disproportionately benefit large market and/or namebrand teams/organizations.

This whole thing is an epidemic. I feel like the NFCCG situation could be the catalyst for change...it has to be. If not, the league admits its corruption and that all these things they’ve focused on are really about...money. We all know that’s the case, but they have not outwardly admitted that yet. Lack of action in this instance is the smoking gun.

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That type of call, especially when you see the shot where the two officials are in relation to the play and the subsequent no call, should make a person question the legitimacy, integrity, and determine the level of interest and investment one would place upon such an event.

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I wouldn't take that call in a vacuum to come to that conclusion, but the NFL has a history of not properly dealing with major issues that question the integrity of games that have been played. Maybe this is the straw that broke the camel's back for Saints fans, but I think "spygate" and "deflategate" were much more damaging to the NFL's reputation than a referee missing a call yesterday, albeit an extremely poor missed call. Then you have their complete lack of consistency when it comes to player conduct issues, concussions, etc. However, the NFL's alleged conspiracies pale in comparison to the NBA. When you have an NBA referee actually go to prison for shaving points, that is a lot worse than anything we know about the NFL.

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The refs didnt let the Rams march down the field for a FG. They didn’t make Drew Brees throw a pick. And they certainly didn’t move the goalposts to make the 57 yard FG kick a 47 yarder.

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Literally all of these thing were only possible because of the refs.

I got too much pride to blame the refs. that’s sinking really really low to a place I won’t allow myself to go.

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The lack of consistency and accountability in officiating is the single biggest thing that drives me crazy and has me not wanting to spend a dime on the product.

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What I don't like is leagues fining players/coaches for calling out officials. Why are they above criticism when no one else is? It just makes little sense to me that they hide behind "upholding the integrity of the game/officials" as a basis for fines in those situations. IMO, that's counter-productive. It only enhances people's questioning the integrity of a sport by not allowing players/coaches to call out refs/umps/officials when they miss a call. Maybe if they held these referees accountable more than they do, people would feel better about the situation. Unfortunately, they aren't paid enough and the penalties for blowing calls don't register a blip, so any backlash an official may receive isn't punitive enough to warrant them changing the way they do things on the football field.

Tony Romo made a great point on the facemask penalty called on the Chiefs last night where the DL whiffed and hit Brady in the shoulder. He said he can see why the ref would assume it was contact to Brady's helmet based on the angle he had but also said if the ref can't see the contact to Brady's helmet, he shouldn't be throwing a flag because simply because he assumed it happened. Far too many times, and not only at the pro level, we see officials make calls that they aren't sure about but are too scared to keep the flag in their pocket (or throw it) or too scared to change the call after consulting, especially in big games.

It’s hard. I love the Saints and love watching football. It’s just exhausting to see this type of thing continue to happen to any team. I get missing some calls, but some of these are just so bad. If those officials just flat out didn’t see the pass interference or helmet to helmet then fine, but having watched the play over and over how do you justify putting them back on the field to ref another game?

For me, yes. I don't watch as much Football as I used to due to the inconsistency of the officiating.

For years, I'd hear people say: "Just wait until it costs some team a SB appearance THEN the NFL will do something about the poor officiating." Well, it finally happened.

Poor officiating is why I don't watch the NBA anymore. Poor officiating is the reason I don't watch much College Football outside of LSU. Poor officiating is going to inevitably the reason I won't watch NFL games.

They have the technology to make all of this correct and take the judgement out of it, yet they refuse to do it.

Pro sports, yep. Said for years the big three are for gamblers, not fans.

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Poor officiating is why I don't watch the NBA anymore.

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NBA game s the worst. It's set up for the "superstar" and It reminds me of wrestling.