Reality Check

       BALTIMORE - The Baltimore Ravens sit atop the powerful AFC North with a 3-1 record.  And yet, no team in the NFL, including the Packers, was damaged more by pathetic replacement officiating than the Ravens.  Their one loss, a one point affair in week two  in Philadelphia, was highway robbery in its purest sense. One touchdown was literally stolen off the scoreboard.  Flacco threw some 30 yards to Jacoby Jones, who leaped and caught the pass in the endzone while ignoring the faceguarding and bumping from the Eagle DB.  The back, for his part, never turned his head while bumping and grinding Jones for the last ten yards of the pass route.  Not only that, but he conspicuously waived his arms in Jones' face for the sole purpose of blocking his vision.  There was no thought on blocking the pass because, like I said, he never turned around.  And yet this clown of an official called offensive interference.  I looked at the replay a dozen times trying to see if there was something that would have caused a rational mind to make such a stupid mistake.  There is nothing: no pushoff, no stiff arm, no nothing.  The thing that bothered me about the disgraceful call was the failure of the man to come clean after the game and after he saw what a terrible call he'd made.  A simple "I blew it," would have made the the call sit better with the team he screwed.  A bit later another Eagle literally grabbed Torre Smith around the waist as he beat him into the endzone on a pass route.  A flag was thrown but not for pass interference.  The moron official called illegal contact.  Huh?  The ball was an instant away from landing in Smith's hands when the infraction was committed.  Why would a defensive player do what he did if no pass had been thrown yet?  At any rate, as the replay clearly showed, the ball had been in the air for quite some time when the guy hogtied Smith.  But instead of first and goal at the one yard line, the Ravens received a five yard penalty and a first down...back at the thirty yard line.  Against a tough Eagle defense, no TD was forthcoming, only a FG.  In a one point game.  
       But lets hold on a minute.  There is no monopoly on pathetic offiating in the ranks of the replacement refs.  Case in point was last year's AFC title game.  The Patriots were up by three in the fourth quarter, when, in the last minute, the Ravens mount a stunning drive, featuring, for the most part, Joe Flacco and Anquan Bouldin.  The football wizard himself, Bill Belechik, is trying to cover Bouldin with a reserve receiver, julian Edelman, and it isn't coming close to working. First, Flacco finds Bouldin for about 35 yards.  On the next play, Flacco finds Bouldin for about 20 more yards.  Now, they are near the Patriot ten yard line with about 30 seconds left.  On first down, from that point, Flacco throws a miraculous pass to Lee Evans in the endzone.  Somehow, the ball gets between two converging Patriot defensive backs and lands in Evans hands.  Evans catches the ball and spins around, both of his feet hitting the ground in the endzone.  Then, an instant later, one of the "beaten" defensive backs swats at the ball and Evans lets go of it.  As people in Baltimore pointed out all winter, there is no way you look at that play and don't see a TD.  Every talisman of a touchdown is there: a firmly caught pass, then firmly held as both feet hit the ground.  The receiver turns some 90 degrees while holding the ball.  Then and only then is the ball swatted loose.  The refs called it incomplete and the most stunning thing of all is that no review was conducted. Maybe in retrospect the Ravens didn't kick up more of a stink.  But it was first down and the Ravens still had two more plays before they would have to kick a chip shot FG to force OT.  Another thing that allowed the play to go unnoticed until it was too late was the fact that the play looked like it was called reasonably at regular speed.  The play did happen fast.  The swat came just an instant after the catch.  But so what?  It's the AFC title game and the play, if called correctly, would have sealed the deal for the Ravens.
       There were many in the radio talk show world today who believe there is a bit of hypocrisy going on with these replacement refs.  Leftists who seem to demand that political correctness be observed over reality, very quickly lose that belief when it comes to these replacement officials.  Because they are "scabs" in some sense, they get no support at all from the TV commentators calling the game.  Some networks have retired refs commenting on the officiating, and they always seem to find problems with the scabs.  When the regular guys are working, they always find a way to support or rationalize the call.  Now admittedly, finding wrongs with the replacements is like shooting fish in a barrel.  They haven't obtained the training the regular guys have.   And they haven't had the game experience the regulars have had.  Of course, even with all of that training, you still get really lousy calls.  Go back to that AFC title game.  The blown call on the Raven TD aside, the Ravens still have the ball.  On the next play a linebacker for the Patriots grabs a favorite Flacco receiver, former BYU star Denis Pita, and hangs on until Flacco's pass is leaving his hand.  Illegal contact? At least.  Holding? Certainly.  And after Flacco throws the ball, in fact, well after Flacco throws the ball, he is creamed by a late arriving Patriot lineman.  Roughing the passer?  Well, of course.  Unnecessary roughness.  For sure.  Was a flag thrown?  Against Belechik and friends in Foxboro?  Are you kiddling?  The Ravens should have had first and goal and been on the verge of beating the Patriots again in the Playoffs in Foxboro.  Had you forgotten that the only team in the Belechik era to do that was the Ravens?  Well, without the obvious calls being "missed," the Ravens had to settle for a game-tieing field goal.  This would be the chip shot the Billy Cundiff missed.  The one that got his butt cut this season in favor of Justin Tucker.  That would be Tucker in a very similar situation Sunday night, after hitting six straight field goals to start the season, many from very long range.  Tucker also shanked his chippy, but by the grace of God, he didn't shank it enough.  It eased inside the upright at the last and this time the Ravens beat New England.  For the replacement refs, it was about their last stand.  On Monday night they really messed up an end-of=game call in Seattle, giving the Seahawks an undeserved win over the Packers.  By Thursday night it was the regular refs taking the field in Baltimore, and for that one brief moment, the refs were cheared lustily.  It lasted for about fifteen minutes, until they, too, really screwed up a call trying to stay on the politically correct side of things.  Bernard Pollock made a great and totally legal hit on a Browns receiver, but it "looked" nasty and the real refs did the PC thing, blowing the call miserably in the process.  But all you union fans out there can be happy that PC is back.  Terrific.