What's that Flag for?

What’s that Flag for?

Fans, including myself, are fed up with the way NFL games are going. Americans watch this game because their favorite player or team is playing and they don’t want to watch officials just consistently throw flags. I mean the biggest flaw the NFL has, is the consistency of the game. Families sit down to watch the game and it’s turned to such a structured game. To the point when viewers can guess when a commercial is going to come. Officials have taken over the game throwing those yellow things in the air, at least every play, or down. However, we couldn’t play a game without those officials, it’d be very disoriented. The NFL needs to find the underlying cause of all these flags because they ultimately hinder the talent of players and the flow of the game.

Now, you probably are asking how many flags have the officials thrown these past two years? In the 2015 season, “NFLPenalties.com counted 3,671 penalties… this season, there have been 1,889,” (2). This doesn’t seem like a lot of penalties, but we should consider that this season is only halfway through the year. To put it in perspective, about three years ago, in the 2013 season, NFLPenalties.com accounted for “3,245” penalties. The 400-penalty difference doesn’t make sense, especially between 2 years of playing. This influx in flags have just halted the game, in Nick Zararis’s article, he talks about how Bill Cowher believes that many fans are suffering from these penalties. (6) However, those fans aren’t just suffering, they are turning the channel because they can’t watch a full game without being interrupted. The consistent penalties thrown in these games against teams and players, are killing the flow of the game.

The rise of these flags are causing most NFL fans to back away from the game because, “You never know if a play counts anymore,” which was said by a football fan that Gary Myers interviewed (3). The quote from the fan that Myers interviewed, shows that people are fed up with the flags. The quote seems that fans are annoyed and giving up on the game. You can see that especially through television ratings. In Gavin Evans article, he explained that well known league analysts, like Randy Moss, don’t want to talk about the NFL’s poor officiating. Instead, they want to talk about the dropping television ratings (1). To give a little back story on Randy Moss, he is a former NFL wide-receiver and now a NFL analyst. Moss portrays a sense of disbelief that the NFL has low ratings and he relates it to the officiating. He isn’t the only one that says the NFL is declining in television viewings, The Statesman article written by Nick Zararis states, “For the first time in recent memory, television ratings for the National Football League are down. There are differing lines of thought as to why… I however am inclined to believe it is a perfect storm of unfavorable conditions for the league,” (6). I have developed this belief also. I am a devoted Denver Broncos fan, and I consistently watch games that are unbearable to watch. I cannot stand watching a game that inconsistently stop and go, I tend to switch the channel when that happens. Even when watching a Detroit Lions game, I develop the same perception. I have a hard time watching football games that don’t allow the game of “football” to be played. People look, and watch, the NFL, and continue to get annoyed and frustrated with the way plays turnout. Fans, like the one Gary Myers interviewed, and myself, show frustration with flags and penalties.

Is the epidemic of “flag-throwing” the fault of the officials? Mike Pereira, a former NFL official and apart of the NFL officiating department, allows his case to be known that the referees are deeply evaluated and made sure that they can do the job. Mike Pereira says the officials are “held accountable” and “graded” (4). Now it’s hard for fans and people who are not refs to understand what they go through. Mike gives a couple different scenarios where officials are harmed because of a call they missed or a bad call in general. We can’t punish the referee because of a call that they chose to make in their perception. Randy Moss had something else to say regarding the higher office of the NFL screwing up the officials because they aren’t “full-time”, they are only “part-time”. The power to make these officiating groups “full-time” referees falls into the hands of the commissioner, Roger Goodell. Moss said, “… if they’re not full-time officials and they have a second job then that means they cannot really focus on the job that we need them to focus on…” (1). Ultimately, referees need to be employed full-time to focus more on the game we love. Officials make bad calls regardless; however, they shouldn’t be punished for not being focused in the biggest sport in America when they are only part-time. If the NFL wants higher ratings and happier fans, they should consider listening to these analysts to make them “full-time” referees.

Going forward, watching NFL games, fans and viewers can be mad at the referees and we need to make them aware on if they are doing a good job. We also need to consider that humans make mistakes, and they can be very bad ones, especially in big games, but these officials can’t focus on the game because they have a family to take care of and bills to pay. Games have increased in amount of penalties every year, and the only way to stop this is to give these officials a full-time opportunity. The NFL needs to keep them focused on the biggest sport in the USA. Until this is resolved, we should be mad with the front office and the unreasonable calls that are made, but we need to ask for a change in how they are employed. That’s done at the front office.

Works Cited

(1) Evans, Gavin. "Randy Moss Thinks the Lack of Full-Time Referees…" Complex. Complex Media, 13 Nov. 2016. Web. 16 Nov. 2016.

(2) Hangst, Andrea. "Throwing the Flag on NFL Penalties." Sports on Earth. MLB Advanced Media, 08 Nov. 2016. Web. 16 Nov. 2016.

(3) Myers, Gary. "Myers: Too Many Penalties Making NFL Hard to Watch." NY Daily News. NY Daily News, 05 Oct. 2015. Web. 16 Nov. 2016.

(4) Pereira, Mike. "Roger Goodell Vs. The Refs." Deadspin. Gizmodo Media Group, 08 Sept. 2016. Web. 16 Nov. 2016.

(5) NFL Penalties - 2014 League Penalty Stats - View by Total." NFL Penalty Stats Tracker. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2016.

(6) Zararis, Nick. "Throwing Flags at the NFL." The Statesman. Statesman Association Inc., 21 Oct. 2016. Web. 16 Nov. 2016.