Don McPeak-US PRESSWIRE
Replacement referees are not new news. They have officiated week one of the regular season and officiated all of the preseason. The play during the Tennessee Titans and New England Patriots game in which the Titans lost both Jake Locker and Nate Washington, should have been ruled dead. But due to uneducated refs, the play continued.
In the play, Locker threw to Washington, and fumbled. Or rather, it was an incomplete pass. These are two totally different things. A fumble can be picked up and returned in the other direction. An incomplete pass cannot. If the player does not have control of the ball and it flies out of the hands of the receiver, and the receiver is then ruled down, it is an incomplete pass. Which should have been the case on Sunday.
But it was not.
“Looking back on it, unfortunately, it was an incomplete pass,” Locker said. “Just because of the circumstances it is tough, but you can’t control that.”
Washington suffered a leg contusion on the tackle and then Locker was forced to take down safety Patrick Chung, on the return, hurting his shoulder in the process. Now both Titans players are absolutely fine and plan to both play on Sunday no problem.
But that’s not the point here. Someone could have been easily hurt in this play, and it was plain to see that the play was dead and should not have gone any further to begin with. A majority of the replacement officials are officials that yes, have been doing this for years, but many of them have been doing arena football or college level football. There are many differences when you jump to the NFL.
An incomplete pass though, is pretty obvious. There isn’t a word yet on if the officials have come to terms or not with the NFL with contracts, but if this kind of stuff keeps up, it’s going to get very ugly, especially when you are running the risk of injuring players because of missed calls.
