Word: gaming
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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...reason why the NFL should change their policy on officials is the height of the stakes of each game. Consider this: the average NFL team is worth $957 million, the Dallas Cowboys being the highest at $1.5 billion. That is an enormous investment by the teams’ owners and other investors. In addition, the three major networks each pay an average of two billion dollars a year to broadcast NFL games. With millions of dollars on the line for each game, teams, television networks, and NFL executives give their best effort to produce the best football possible...
...addition to watching film and attending meetings with other referees, full-time referees would have the time to attend practices of teams other than those that they would be officiating over the course of a week. This would allow officials to watch and participate in game-speed situations more than once a week. Professional football coach and long time advocate of the full-time referee, Bud Grant writes, in Always on Sunday, “They can use all the bright new technology, but none of that is going to make them a better official who calls more plays right...
Additionally, the nature of the sport requires an official to keep up with the pace of the game. The NFL is a showcase of some of the best athletes in the United States, and a referee must remain in top physical condition to keep up with them. It is impossible to measure how many missed calls were the result of officials who were unable to keep up with the players. However, officials would certainly be better able to stay on top of their exercise if officiating were their full-time job rather than having to sit behind a desk...
Though referees make most calls correctly, there are still many calls that have influenced post-season games that officials later admit were wrong. During the playoffs in 2006, did Troy Polamalu intercept Peyton Manning? Even with instant replays, the referees still got it wrong, as official Peter Morelli later admitted, though the ruling ultimately decided the outcome of that game. Also, many Seahawks fans can attest to there being inconsistent officiating even in the biggest of games, as Superbowl XL demonstrates. Granted, a full-time referee will also make bad calls from time to time...
When I realized that I would have almost three weeks in Florida over J-Term, I decided that it was time to give it another try (the weather also happened to be unseasonably cold, so there wasn’t really much else to do). My first game of nine holes was interesting, to say the least. While the sporadic golf lessons of my youth served me well, the game was not exactly a success. Randomly I would make a great shot, which would cause my mother to emit a siren-like sound—“Whoowhoo...