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Post by tj888 on Jan 23, 2019 18:02:21 GMT -5
It is not whining when the referee's action or inaction prevented your team from going to the Super Bowl. The mistake in the Saints game was egregious and obvious which makes it a severe mistake. The NFL must take action from preventing it from ever happening again. That starts with disciplining the officials that were involved. (Now, I don't think they should lose their jobs but they must be fined or suspended or banned from working the postseason for a SHORT period of time).
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Post by FredFan7 on Jan 23, 2019 19:40:16 GMT -5
Any suspension or fine will be at the behest of the NFL soley for PR purposes.
How will suspending the officials help them become better officials? What good does this accomplish? Does it undo their error? Or, will it make then officiate scared? Will it make other officials officiate scared? These aren't officials who barely hanging on by the skin of their teeth. These are Tier I officials.
Think of it this way. Say there's the number one sales executive 10-years running at billion dollar ACME Mega company. He's made the company a hundred million dollars in revenue in the past 10 years. He has the chance to land a major account for nine figures. But he wrote down the wrong day for the deadline to submit proposals. He missed the chance for his company to land a major client.
This guy is sick. He's harangued by his bosses. He's ostracized by his co-workers. Industry insiders hoot on Acme's major screw up.
Should the company take away his other accounts? Should they ban him from trying to land new clients and just maintain the ones he has? Should they fire him and the potential he has to be a long-term asset?
Or, do they look at his record, realize this screw-up is an outlier, dust him off, have him submit an action plan on how he won't make the same mistake again, and get him get back to doing what he does best? He'll have work hard to prove himself to his bosses, his clients and himself, but he will be motivated by redemption.
Now, if his production starts to wane and he commits further errors, then it'll be time to make a change.
But, I'd submit to you, the dust him off and go over an action plan approach will work better in the long run.
That's what I hope the NFL does with the NFC CC crew. The NFL has too much invested in them to lose them through suspension, bans and fines all to satisfy media and fans.
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Post by tj888 on Jan 23, 2019 20:57:59 GMT -5
Any suspension or fine will be at the behest of the NFL soley for PR purposes. How will suspending the officials help them become better officials? What good does this accomplish? Does it undo their error? Or, will it make then officiate scared? Will it make other officials officiate scared? These aren't officials who barely hanging on by the skin of their teeth. These are Tier I officials. Think of it this way. Say there's the number one sales executive 10-years running at billion dollar ACME Mega company. He's made the company a hundred million dollars in revenue in the past 10 years. He has the chance to land a major account for nine figures. But he wrote down the wrong day for the deadline to submit proposals. He missed the chance for his company to land a major client. This guy is sick. He's harangued by his bosses. He's ostracized by his co-workers. Industry insiders hoot on Acme's major screw up. Your example is ABSOLUTELY different from this situation. Did your ACME employee hurt others with its mistake? The simple fact here is these officials denied a team from going to the Super Bowl. I don't care what people say but that missed call decided the game period. Yes, your fictional sales employee hurt his/her company but did it effect millions of people. This mistake affected millions of people! Consequences must be in order.
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Post by mike on Jan 23, 2019 21:01:45 GMT -5
Fred,
That comparison would be more apt if you had an official that was constient Tier 1. Gary Cavaletto is not. Prukop and Turner are too young to say. In the case of Cavaletto you are talking about one of your top performers this year who is not consistently at that level. I can see Vinovich being spared, but Cavaletto is in trouble.
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Post by tj888 on Jan 23, 2019 21:05:15 GMT -5
Any suspension or fine will be at the behest of the NFL soley for PR purposes. How will suspending the officials help them become better officials? What good does this accomplish? Does it undo their error? Or, will it make then officiate scared? Will it make other officials officiate scared? These aren't officials who barely hanging on by the skin of their teeth. These are Tier I officials. Think of it this way. Say there's the number one sales executive 10-years running at billion dollar ACME Mega company. He's made the company a hundred million dollars in revenue in the past 10 years. He has the chance to land a major account for nine figures. But he wrote down the wrong day for the deadline to submit proposals. He missed the chance for his company to land a major client. This guy is sick. He's harangued by his bosses. He's ostracized by his co-workers. Industry insiders hoot on Acme's major screw up. Should the company take away his other accounts? Should they ban him from trying to land new clients and just maintain the ones he has? Should they fire him and the potential he has to be a long-term asset? Or, do they look at his record, realize this screw-up is an outlier, dust him off, have him submit an action plan on how he won't make the same mistake again, and get him get back to doing what he does best? He'll have work hard to prove himself to his bosses, his clients and himself, but he will be motivated by redemption. Bad calls happen because of incompetence or lack of discipline. We know that these are the best officials in the NFL, so clearly it is not incompetence. That is why these officials needs to be much more disciplined. They need to be held accountable for their actions. WHY IS THE NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS SO GOOD? It is because Bill Belichick holds his team accountable and prevents (tries his best to) them from making mistakes. HOW? He does it by cutting and disciplining players if they make a crucial and silly mistake on the field that hurts their chances to win. What good does disciplining officials for crucial misses accomplish? It accomplishes several things: first, officials now realize that these games affect so many people that they need to be at their best. Yes, I know mistakes happen to everyone, but you must eliminate any chances of people making the mistakes. For example, if a student had a bad day and didn't do well on a final exam and they fail the class and must repeat it the next semester, they shouldn't be given a freebie because it does them no good to be failing.
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Post by js on Jan 23, 2019 22:21:56 GMT -5
tj888, excessive discipline won't work either because mistakes will still happen regardless of any precautions taken by the league (whether it be instant replay, more game film to study, enhanced training, etc.). Human error is a part of pretty much anything, and trying to perfect an imperfect science by any means necessary isn't worth it.
Yes, it's unfortunate that this happened at a crucial point of a conference championship game, but think of it in a more "non-cynical" way. At the start of next season, the Saints will have a clean slate & a fresh road to Super Bowl LIV. That same principle should apply to Cavaletto, Prukop, Turner and the rest of the crew. It's just not worth it for staff morale to put them behind the eight-ball in the 2019 season for something that happened during the 2018 playoffs.
[Moderator note: The last sentence refers to a post that was removed by moderators that was outside of community guidelines.]
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Post by russ on Jan 23, 2019 23:59:36 GMT -5
Fred, That comparison would be more apt if you had an official that was constient Tier 1. Gary Cavaletto is not. Prukop and Turner are too young to say. In the case of Cavaletto you are talking about one of your top performers this year who is not consistently at that level. I can see Vinovich being spared, but Cavaletto is in trouble. To be fair to Gary he might have missed the playoffs the last 2 seasons but he also made the playoffs 10 years in a row from 2006-2015 working 4 conference championships and 1 Super Bowl during that time. It's not like he is some scrub, he was tier 1 (before they had tiers) and really one of the best FJ's in the league from 2008-2014. Even though SJ and FJ are pretty much the same position he has not been nearly as strong at SJ. Also Prukop has worked the playoffs 6 straight seasons and has gone Super Bowl, CC, CC the last 3 seasons. I don't think you can call him too young to evaluate anymore, he is damn good despite his extremely rough playoffs. These are not scrubs we are talking about, 2 of the 3 Officials involved are among the best at their position and 1 is a rising star and one Blandino's best hires (he had some pretty damn good hires in 2014).
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Post by russ on Jan 24, 2019 0:29:26 GMT -5
I have been waiting for awhile to post about what I think should happen because honestly I still am not completely sure. I don't think it can be emphasized enough how bad the no call was on Sunday. I always hate saying that Officials cost a team a game but this is as close to costing a team a game as you will get.
I have been trying to find a situation that this relates to and I think the closest example is Don Denkinger's incorrect call in the 9th inning of Game 6 of the World Series. An obvious incorrect call was made late in a game with the team it effected having a small window to try to rectify it. In this case the Cardinals had a whole bottom of the 9th and a Game 7 to make up for it and they did not. The same is sort of true with the Saints. Despite the bad no call they did have a chance to stop the Rams on two seperate occasions and could not. They also threw a terrible interception. But if you looked at how the Saints handled themselves they were so demoralized by the no call they pretty much had no chance. They were defeated before actually being defeated. Same was true with the Cardinals after the bad safe call in 1985.
When trying to figure out what should happen as a result of this no call I also looked back to Denkinger to see what happened as a result of his blown call. And what happened to Denkinger was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. He was the Crew Chief of the 1987 All Star Game (remember through 1993 you did not work special events (World Series, LCS, All Star Game) in back to back seasons excepet on very rare occasions) and would also work the 1988 ALCS, 1991 World Series and 1992 ALCS. He continued to be one of the top Umpires in the AL for 8 seasons after his infamous call. That is why I caution everybody before taking drastic measures in discipline.
Now just because nothing happened to Denkinger does not mean nothing should happen here. At minimum Turner, Cavaletto and Prukop should be stripped of any playoff bonus they would have received and while this might be too much they should lose their paycheck from this game. They did not perform to the standard expected of a Playoff Official or any NFL Official for that matter and should not be rewarded for their performance. I doubt it will happen but I would not be completely against a short (maybe 2 game) suspension of at least Cavaletto and Turner at the start of next season. I will spare Prukop from that aspect because it really isn't technically his call although he did have a good look at it. To me that is as far as I would go. Banning them from Playoff games to me doesn't make any sense. I would be OK with not letting them work a Championship Game or Super Bowl for a little while, Kind of like what happened with George Hayward after the Giants-Niners fiasco.
I also do not expect Gary Cavaletto to ever work a Saints game again. He only has a few more years left in the league anyways so it will be easy to manage but you cannot have him on any Saints. Probably a good idea to avoid the Vinovich on Saints games as well for at least a few years since as the Referee he is kind of associated with it, even though he did nothing wrong. You can probably get away with Turner and Prukop continuing to work Saints games. Realistically most Saints fans have no idea who they are so they will just be another Official on any game they work involving the Saints.
I know this is long but my last words. I think Terry McAulay is right on the money. I am not making an excuse for the no call, but I bet Cavaletto and Turner went into that play with the mindset of don't call anything unless it is obvious. Now of course this was as obvious as it gets but the mindset of letting things go in the playoffs to me is wrong. I want every Official to treat a playoff game the same way they treat regular season games. It doesn't excuse the no call but the mindset of let stuff go did not help them in this situation.
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Post by cj on Jan 24, 2019 12:02:23 GMT -5
You think the union will allow any harsh punishment? You have another think coming..
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Post by russ on Jan 24, 2019 13:55:34 GMT -5
You think the union will allow any harsh punishment? You have another think coming.. Definitely not. If there is a harsh punishment Scott Green and company will fight it to death. I am just saying more what would be approrpiate to happen. We all know very little will happen and if anything does it will be internal.
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Post by cj on Jan 24, 2019 17:22:03 GMT -5
russ...In all due respect to you, take the time element of the call away. It was an error. If that play had occurred midway through the second quarter, nobody would remember it and I am sure such miscalls have occurred throughout all sports.
Incidentally Periera had the best idea of all. Change the name of the replay official to the sky judge and make him a full fledged member of the crew. On plays like that he buzzes down, tells the other officials what he saw, corrective action could be taken and end of problem. Don't need a rule change it's just a change to officiating techniques..
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Post by frugaldeac on Jan 24, 2019 18:04:30 GMT -5
Hello again, Thanks for letting me post, I hope it doesn't get deleted and I hope I don't get banned (fired or suspended from posting for awhile). I read most of the posts that came after my earlier ones. A sales executive comparison? Really? That's the best you got? All right then. I can see that the administration philosophy is something like #1. The officials are always right, #2. If the officials are wrong, see #1. #3 If your team loses an important game or championship due to a missed call (or one that had a huge impact), too bad and so sad. The officials did their best and recall #1 above again. All right then, do we at least think that some sort of correction procedure should be put in place when an official(s) blows a call like in the one in the Saints Rams game Sunday? Or do we believe that a correction procedure is unnecessary due to belief #1 above? Fox's Mike Pereira agrees with me. I respect his opinion a lot. www.foxsports.com/nfl/video/1429528643660I have an idea that was formed by something I witnessed in college football this year. I think it would work, but I realize that no correction procedure is going to make everyone happy. It's real easy to implement. This post is too long but maybe my next post I will submit it, if allowed' Edited to add, Oh my, I must have overlooked the 2nd part of cj's last post. My idea is the 'skyjudge' too. Oh well, dust me off and forgive me. I tried to do my best. That means a lot here, doesn't it?
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Post by mike on Jan 24, 2019 19:05:37 GMT -5
This site has been critical of officials before. One incident that stands out to me is Bill Leavy’s awful performance in Giants @ Packers Divisional Round leading up to Super Bowl XLVI and that was even with the team most adversely affected winning the game. The real problem is crafting the appropriate penalty. One thing I saw (I am not sure if here or elsewhere), fining Turner and Cavaletto their game checks and maybe 1/2 of Prukop. Also, the league can easily avoid assigning Cavaletto to Saints games. There is usually a FJ/SJ swing official. Make him that in 2019 so you can easily keep him away. Perhaps make it clear to the offending officials that for X number of years if they are Tier 1 the best they are getting is a Divisional round game and if they are Tier 2 they are not getting an assignment unless there is a lack of qualified officials at the position.
The bigger issue is the hiring and retention practices of the NFL. Being consistently Tier 2 is enough to keep your job. That is wrong in my opinion. If you do not feel comfortable having any official officiate any game including the Super Bowl (absent something like Jerome Boger or Byron Boston had with their sons playing in the NFL) they should not be retained. I understand an official can have a down year, but not when they are repeatedly not in Tier 1. With hiring, the NFL wants to champion diversity and I think it has caused too many questionable hires. If an official is not working NY6 level on a regular basis (or at least be in the running for it) they should not be on the NFL’s radar. I don’t care if that means C-USA officials won’t get hired, but it is a big jump from Idaho Potato Bowl to NFL.
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Post by flinesman on Jan 25, 2019 7:38:12 GMT -5
Remember Mike, Gerald Austin (C-USA) coordinator and Al Riveron are very close friends.(loyalty) As long as Riveron is there, C-USA will have plenty of representation into the NFL.
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Post by cj on Jan 25, 2019 9:52:11 GMT -5
Mike that would be true if you believe the "ratings" are infallible and always on the level Often times they are simply substituting some bureaucrat at 345 Park's judgment for the official on the field. Set up a mechanism for the replay official to be part of the crew and that will solve most of the problem and that could be instituted tomorrow even for this year's NFL Championship Game.
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