– Derek Allen, Attorney –
For those of you who didn’t stay up last night to watch your favorite team get hosed on the final play, it appears pretty clear that the ongoing dispute between the NFL and its regular officials has reached a boiling point. The twitterverse is exploding (caution: some NSFW language), news just broke that some of the replacement refs the NFL is using were fired from the Lingerie Football League (!) for incompentence (caution: a slightly NSFW picture of the Lingerie Football League in action), and even those ugly division rivals in purple and gold are apologizing for the call last night. As a Wisconsin native, I’m still fatigued from hearing people argue about the relative merit of unions, so I’ll stay clear of writing about whether the referees’ union or the NFL is in the right here. But I will say I’d be thrilled to have even one-tenth of the leverage in my next contract negotiation that the real refs must have going into their meetings with the NFL this week.
For the expected takes on all sides of the issue, I point you generally to this morning’s internet, where the call seems to be everywhere. (You know it’s big when its on the front page of the Drudge Report. I’m just waiting to see the Romney and Obama campaigns blame each other for the call. UPDATE: Here it is!) Of course, you come to Duetsblog to find out about issues that are important to you: to wit, are the replacement referees worse than their video game counterparts? To the evidence!
In the video game category, I’d suggest looking here, here, here, here, and here. A collection of videos of the replacement refs in action can be found here. If you’re undecided after those examples, feel free to do your own independent research (assuming you haven’t already been fired after your boss catches you watching YouTube videos of bad video games call while you’re supposed to be working). Then, if you actually had the werewithal to come to a conclusion on this, you’d be remiss not to post your thoughts in the comments. As for me (and I assume reletively recent Packer convert and Duets superstar Catlan McCurdy), I’ll just be drowning my sorrows with coffee this morning.