[Paul R.]

There are too many game rules, to many specialty rules too. And some seriously bad officials.

Lots of parallels with the gov't, eh?

(I just could not resist!)

Seriously, though, in either case, one of the problems is that when you get too many complex "rules", rarer is the "official" who can run the game well or properly enforce all the rules.

Given the job NFL refs are tasked with, I think they actually do pretty well, most of the time.

[Ouderkirk]

when you get too many complex "rules", rarer is the "official" who can run the game well or properly enforce all the rules.

Yes..that's exactly what has happened. The Referees make bad calls based on an interpretation of an abundance of bad rules.

Nascar did the same thing and changed the nature of the racing. It wasn't the best of the best of the Saturday Night racers, it became about the personalities.