NFL Commissioner Goodell Offers Mea Culpa To Fans

By Chuck Sudo in News on Sep 27, 2012 6:20PM

Now that our long pro football officiating nightmare is over the man most responsible for it, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, is trying to put it behind him.

Goodell offered an apology to fans for locking out the referees and having to endure three weeks of games officiated by replacement referees who may not have known the cities in which they were officiating games, let alone the proper yardage to assess to an offsides penalty.

Goodell offered his mea culpa during a conference call Thursday. ESPN.com reports:

"Obviously when you go through something like this, it's painful for everybody. Most importantly, it's painful for fans. We're sorry to have to put fans through that. Sometimes you have to go through something like that in the short term for the right agreement for the long term."

That's as far as Goodell's apology went and it could have gone farther. He stopped short of admitting the performance of the replacement referees was that bad or that the final play of Monday night's Green Bay-Seattle game was the catalyst for cutting through the hawkish stance of the owners and the tentative agreement with the NFLRA.

Goodell said the two sides were in "intense negotiations" for the past two weeks but offered the Packers-Seahawks game "may have pushed the parties along." Goodell also went out of his way to remind reporters that the regular refs make their fair share of blown calls.

We don't disagree with Goodell. The difference is that Ed Hochuli, Gene Steratore (the head ref for tonight's Cleveland-Baltimore contest) and the regular referees aren't learning their jobs on the fly in front of a national audience. Case in point: this call from Sunday night's Patriots-Ravens game that led to one of the loudest "bullshit" chants we've ever heard.