[Terabitten]

A friend of mine is in a business group with a guy in the insurance business who works as an NFL official. What these guys go through every week between games is unbelievable. The league office closely scrutinizes each and every game, and requires each crew to be available for a review session to address particularly controversial calls.

There was a game between the Giants and Cowboys about 10-15 years ago in which the officials mistakenly awarded the Giants a safety on a kickoff that had been fumbled into the end zone and downed by the Dallas kick returner. The on-field officials got the call wrong, and yet it was upheld after review in the officials' box. The entire crew of replay officials from that game was fired before the following weekend.

That's good, and they *should* have been fired. However, it has the effect of replacing them with even *less* experienced officials.

[Alberta's Child]

Experience isn't worth a damn if you don't even know what constitutes a safety on a kickoff like that.

You can be sure that every replay crew from that point forward knew exactly how to make that call correctly.