Can anyone save the NFL from itself?

Update: The plot thickens, as Vegas earns $64 million off NFL official's awful call. Plus: Wanna see the new "Star Trek" trailer? Click here.

The Morning After | Headlines, humor, hyperbole and hubris

The officiating in this league is horribly inconsistent and borderline amateurish, and the parity in the league is threatening its credibility.

Let's talk officiating first.

We've had two of the most one-sided games I've ever laid eyes on (and I watch a lot of football). The first was the St. Louis-New England game on Oct. 26. The second was yesterday's San Diego-Pittsburgh game.*

*For the record, I'm a Steelers fan. You should know that by now, but it's worth mentioning so you know the biases before you get into this section. But stick with me.

You want to know what the common threat was in both of those games?

Official Scott Green.

He's not going to get a lot of Christmas well wishing from the cities of Pittsburgh or St. Louis.

(He's probably not getting a lot of love from the New York area either. You may remember how he stiffed the Giants in a 2003 wild card playoff game. If you forgot, Green was part of what then-commish Paul Tagliabue called one of the worst blunders of his tenure.)

And he's probably not going to get any love from Vegas either, as his crew boggled the last touchdown call so bad that he had to apologize after the game. If they allow that TD, the Steelers cover the -4.5 point spread. It was mesmerizingly confusing. Monumentally stupid. And completely indicative of how overmatched NFL refs are.

But that was just the exclamation point on the end of a really terrible sentence.

Update: The Steelers were offiically 5 point favorites yesterday. That touchdown didn't cost bookies nearly as much as it cost gamblers. Specifically, that non-TD call swung $64 million in favor of the bookies. These figures according to pregame.com. I'd suffice to say that if this were the NBA ... we'd be investigating Mr. Green almost immediately. Credibility matters.

In the Patriots/Rams game, the Rams were penalized 9 times for 63 yards. The Patriots? Not one time. And if John Madden has taught me anything, it's that you can call holding on almost every single play.

Well, apparently, not if you're a Patriot.

In the Chargers/Steelers game, the disparity almost cost one team the game. The Steelers were called 13 times for 115 yards. The Chargers? Twice. Now, part of the reason for this discrepancy, is that the Steelers had the ball for nearly 9 hours.

But, with my own eyes, I spotted at least two drive-killing fouls that were phantom calls. (Not to mention the pass interference call on the Chargers scoring drive that put the ball on the 1 yard line. If all 6'5" of Vincent Jackson couldn't reach that pass with a ladder, I believe it just may be an uncatchable ball.)

Before you say: "You're a Steeler fan, of course you'd say that," consider that I'm complaining about the refs in a game in which my team WON!

I realize that officiating a professional game is very difficult. I've tried to ref a kids basketball league, it's not easy.

But games like this, games like the Ed Hochuli blown call in the Broncos/Chargers game and consistently letting teams like the Colts and Patriots commit illegal procedure while stopping the Titans, Bears and Steelers for it in consecutive weeks, puts the credibility of the NFL on the line.

I'd love if we had some of these "journalists" on ESPN would take the officiating to task. But they won't. They're too afraid of losing their coverage rights to do this. (I watched the NFL highlights on SportsCenter, hoping for something. Of course, they just gave a cursory tip to the end-of-game fiasco. Typical.)

So, we're stuck with that problem.

We're also stuck with this problem, which again manifested itself yesterday: The Lions, Rams, Bengals, Browns, Chiefs and Seahawks have a combined 9 wins. And Cleveland has a third of those. Ouch. The Lions have a pretty tough schedule left. Are they beating Tampa, Minnesota, New Orleans or Tennessee at home? And could they beat Green Bay or Indianapolis on the road? Probably not.

Of course, I wish the NFL's problems stopped there ...

Time for some sister kissing!

Wow, an NFL game ended in a tie. The last time that happened, a young, upstanding young man named Michael Vick was working the field in a 34-34 game against the Steelers as a second-year QB in Atlanta.

Whatever happened to that guy?

Yesterday's 13-13 tie in the Philadelphia-Cincinnati game proved yet another time that the NFL's overtime system sucks.

There's nothing good that can come from it. A coin flip determines who gets the ball. Usually, like the game nobody saw last Thursday, the Jets win over the Patriots, the team that wins the toss takes the ball downfield and scores a TD.

Is that fair? No. More importantly, it's not compelling.

Why not adopt college rules (more exciting, definitely) and just start putting the ball at the 25? Give each team a possession to score. Winner is the team that scores when the other doesn't.

Small tangent: HOW IN THE WORLD DID DONOVAN MCNABB NOT KNOW THERE WERE TIES IN THE NFL?

The search for something nice to say about the Chiefs

I'm tired of being mean-spirited about the KC football team. It's not really funny anymore. So, taking my mother's advice, I'm going to try to find something nice to say. Here it is:

Arrowhead looks really cool in high definition when the sun is out on a November day and the stadium is filled with people. And I'm absolutely convinced that the Chiefs future quarterback is Tyler Thigpen. Yesterday's game was his fourth solid game. Brodie hasn't had four solid games since he was in high school.

Three Things I Wish I Would've Known, Remembered or Thought Friday

1. I wish I'd taken my buddy Mike's offer to sign up for a Bodog account and placed a few bets on the NFL this weekend. I would've bet my unborn and unconceived first child's college fund that the New York Giants would've covered against the Baltimore "Not Nearly As Good As Our Record Shows Because We've Beaten Up The Bengals, Browns (2x), Texans and Raiders" Ravens. They have, exactly, 1 win against a team with a record over .500.

2. I wish I knew the Giants wouldn't even look to throw the ball to a player that I told you should be a good fantasy pickup, tight end Kevin Boss. My apologies. As a makeup call, here's a picture of "Chuck" hottie Yvonne Strahovski in a Princess Leia outfit. You're welcome.

3. I wish I would've remembered that Larry Johnson runs better angry. How could I forget that he was The Hulk? (Used to be, he was like the Bill Bixby Hulk. Smashing without apology or regard for the consequences. These days, he's like the Ang Lee Hulk. Still smashes at times, but gets hung up with authority issues and spends way too much time apologizing/being apologized for than he does actually doing what he does best.)

Oh, By the Way?

I think Titans QB Kerry Collins is the second coming. The Titans will finish undefeated and beat the New York Giants in the Super Bowl in the league's second 11-10 game ever.

The Morning After's New List of Power Moves

#33: Growing a non-ironic mullet outside of Independence.

#45: Going into an Oakland Raider bar with an IQ over 45.

#59: Putting a bet down in Vegas on the Detroit Lions winning the Super Bowl next year. Strong.

You Stay Classy Scott Pollard

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