If NFL officials are held accountable, why not for every other sport?

by Rays Rule on Sep 15, 2008 11:22 PM EDT

This is a paragraph from an article that I read from ESPN.com earlier today. This maybe should have been a fanshot, but since nobody reads those....here ya go:

"Officials are held accountable for their calls. They are graded on every play of every game," NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said Monday. "Ed has been an outstanding official for many years, but he will be marked down for this call. Under our evaluation system, an official's grades impact his status for potentially working the playoffs and ultimately whether or not he is retained."

To read the rest of this artice, here's the link: http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3589407

The main reason for this post is because last week we talked about umpires and accountability for their screwups (attn: Doug Eddings) I remember someone saying MLB umpires would never be fined unless they were paid more. I'm not sure of the pay scale between the NFL and MLB, but I certainly applaud the NFL for holding referees accountablefor their actions. They don't dscriminate either because Ed Hochuli is probably the most respected ref in the NFL. Now it doesn't say if and how much he was fined, but at least the NFL is doing something about refs/umps who make mistakes by implementing a "point system" which could eventually end in their firing. MLB needs to take a page out of their book. This post is more directed towards fielding umpires and not umpires who call balls and strikes.

This post was written by a member of the DRaysBay community and does not necessarily express the views or opinions of DRaysBay staff.

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Amen brother

by atlantaray on Sep 16, 2008 12:25 AM EDT reply actions

I think Hockey Refs are watch closely too

but I am not too sure.

by Underdogs on Sep 16, 2008 9:47 AM EDT reply actions

I though the baseball umps get graded by questek

9 = 8

by walkoffwalk on Sep 16, 2008 12:47 PM EDT reply actions

if i remeber right

not all parks has Questek

by Underdogs on Sep 16, 2008 11:29 PM EDT up reply actions

Did it change the outcome of the game?

Is fining or not retaining umpires going to decrease the number of human errors created in a game? In terms of weeding out the best crews for playoffs I am all for it, but bringing up a bunch of minor league umpires is not going to fix the problem. The problem is that these guys only have 2 eyes and one brain and do not like to have their credibility tampered with. Until they get away from “protecting” each other by agreeing, regardless of what they saw, and start protecting the game by conferring and getting it right the problem will not be solved.

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.

by Sandy Kazmir on Sep 16, 2008 2:49 PM EDT reply actions