October 17, 2012 Assistant youth football coach Dion Robinson was arrested after sucker-punching a referee at a youth football game. The crazy thing is, It's not Robinson's first time in trouble with the law. This dude's criminal record includes arrests for battery on a law enforcement officer, aggravated assault with a firearm, armed robbery and cocaine possession.
Think back to your days on the 8th grade football team. If you’re like us, you sat on the bench daydreaming about girls while the man-child that could already grow a beard ran sideline to sideline and crushed anyone in his path.
As you may have heard, hobos and miscreants are in charge of refereeing NFL games now! Or, rather, the NFL has decided to use high school referees as replacements while it negotiates with the actual referees' union, which has led to the occasional minor controversy. And while Monday's night's disastrous ending to the Packers-Seahawks game is probably the pinnacle (or nadir) of this sad saga, there were already plenty of questionable, puzzling and downright infuriating officiating decisions leading up to it.
Let's have a look, shall we?
By now, even non-football fans have heard about the officiating debacle in last night's showdown between the Green Bay Packers and Seattle Seahawks (just check your Facebook feed). Facing a 12-7 deficit with just seconds left to play, Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson rolled out of the pocket and threw a desperation heave into the end zone, resulting in a game-clinching interception for the Packers.
Except it wasn't. Instead, the NFL's much-maligned replacement officials inexplicably ruled the play a touchdown for the Seahawks, ignoring an obvious offensive pass-interference penalty and cementing the phrase "simultaneous catch" into the lexicon of poor sports officiating.
This screw-up will, hopefully, lead to the return of the real refs—but let's not forget that they too have made their share of awful calls over the years. Here's a look at some of the NFL's most controversial officiating decisions:
September 25, 2012 After last night's officiating debacle during Monday Night Football, NFL fans are livid about the replacement referees. One fan took his hatred of the replacement zebras and put it into a hilarious spoof of the craptastic song "Call Me Maybe."
Woah boy. Even if you could not give one fraction of an iota of a care about football, you probably still heard about the game last night (thanks, Facebook!). To deal, we just imagined old-timey Keystone Kops music playing underneath the whole thing. Thankfully other people dealt with the insanity by making funny memes. Here are some of the best.
Over the weekend, the New York Jets decided to use their much talked about backup quarterback Tim Tebow in a couple of offensive plays. One of the plays was an easy swing pass where Tebow could make the catch out in the flat and hopefully find some room to run. An immaculate reception it was not.
Three overtime games and several last-second finishes highlighted the NFL action from Week 3. Here's a recap of all of Sunday's games:
September 18, 2012 Concussions have been all over the news recently, with multiple former football players suffering from the lingering effects of the brain injury. A new study done in Michigan has recommended a radical way to reduce concussions in young athletes, by banning high school football.
There aren't too many times that a NFL team will attempt a 63-yard field goal, since missing the difficult kick will result in great field position for the opposing team.
But with only seconds left in the first half in their game against the Green Bay Packers Sunday, the San Francisco 49ers didn't have to worry about that when they sent kicker David Akers out to try what would tie the record for the longest kick in league history.
Innovative touchdown celebrations are something of a dying art, thanks to the No Fun League’s penalties on excessive showboating. $10,000 fines have a way of making a player think twice before pulling out a prop in the end zone.
The NFL opens its 2012 regular season on Wednesday night when the defending Super Bowl champion New York Giants host the Dallas Cowboys. Fifteen other games fill out the schedule of the new season’s first week. Here’s
