NFL 2012 season thread

[stlouie_lipp]

I was at the game. Too far away to see the final play, but the players were clearly unhappy with the referees long before that. There was a lot of pushing and shoving, like kids in a class with a substitute teacher who can't control them. Now, I don't think the players have any respect for the replacement refs and public opinion is going against them as well, so maybe we will see a settlement because of this. As Packers guard T.J. Lang tweeted, "[Expletive] it NFL. Fine me and use the money to pay the regular refs."

That had to be a cluster [expletive].

[Fat Strat]

Honestly, I'm still not convinced that the Seattle player didn't have both hands on the ball at the same time as the Packer player when they were airborn. The Packer player clearly won the wrestling match and was in better position overall, but fools like Chris Carter try to claim that the Seattle player never had both hands on the ball. That's just incorrect.

Watched a real slow replay of it yesterday. The Packer player caught it while in the air with both hands. That doesn't matter. He's not down. Tate had wrapped at least one arm around the ball while both players were in the air. By the time that the Packer defender actually landed through the mess of bodies and got both of his feet/body down -- which is what would make it an official catch/interception -- Tate had both arms in and around the ball. Really, very little matters before he got his feet down. And just looking at single frame replay of when both players are "down" -- ignoring everything that happened before and everything that happened after -- possession of the ball is in question... i.e. not enough to overturn the official ruling on the field of a TD.

But, that was also the problem. Because of the way the play took place, I think that the call on the field should have been an INT since the Packer defender had clearly caught the ball while in the air and then the scrum happened... the Packer player never lost the control he had in the air.

I think the best call of that play would have been INT by the Packers, reviewed by the booth and determined inconclusive. And all of that should have been made moot by the blatant offensive pass interference penalty that wasn't called.

I've never seen that kind of play happen on a game ending Hail Mary, but you see it every now and then in games. An interception occurs and almost simultaneously the offensive player grabs onto the defender and tries to wrestle the ball away or claim joint possession. The refs almost always give the ball to the player that appeared to have possession first -- the INT -- even if that possession occurred while in the air.

[Mary1966]

My photo album from the game:

http://s239.photobucket.com/albums/ff20 ... s09242012/

[AdmiralKird]

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap100000 ... le=HP11_cp

Lockout Over

[Radbird]

My photo album from the game:

http://s239.photobucket.com/albums/ff20 ... s09242012/

Nice pics. Thanks for sharing, Mary. I have the same t-shirt as the guy on the right (spoilered for size).

[SHOW]

[Vidor]

The most depressing thing about this--the NFL won. New referees will not be getting pensions.

http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sp ... _war_.html

[fanforever]

Rams vs Gridbirds tonight....Is there ANY interest in this game? Both teams have a pretty good defense

[Popeye_Card]

Rams vs Gridbirds tonight....Is there ANY interest in this game? Both teams have a pretty good defense

The Rams defense isn't overly good, though the system seems to be working for the most part so far. They'll have to generate turnovers to win, because the offense has the tendency to sputter through 3 downs every drive to kill it for a field goal at best.

[The Third Man]

Ugh, I forgot the game was tonight. This puts me between a rock and a hard place as tonight is my only chance to catch Lawrence of Arabia on the big screen. I hate you, NFL.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

I think there's a south park episode that helps in making choices like these.