SALON

Saturday, Sep 29, 2012 8:30 AM UTC

Festive mood among NFL’s refs before contract vote

By

Topics: From the Wires,

IRVING, Texas (AP) — For the NFL’s officials, the meetings to discuss their new contract looked like the first day of school.

Dozens of officials, some of whom hadn’t seen each other in months, shook hands, hugged and laughed. They picked up new officials’ hats and orange boxes with cleats. After a summer of conference calls and watching games on TV, the refs were ready to get back to work.

The officials met Friday night and were expected on Saturday to approve an offer reached after three weeks of flubs by league-hired replacements. The final push for a settlement, according to several officials, appeared to be a disputed touchdown call that decided Monday night’s Packers-Seahawks game and left fans howling.

The deal reached late Wednesday must be approved by 51 percent of the union’s 121 members.

Monday night’s game ended in chaos after replacement refs called a touchdown catch for the Seahawks instead of a Packers interception. Many fans and commentators — and players in the league — thought the call was botched. Criticism of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and the league continued to escalate, and the labor dispute drew public comments from both President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney. By late Wednesday, both sides had a deal.

“It’s all history now,” head linesman Tom Stabile said Friday morning. “For us, it was a benefit. It may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Line judge Jeff Bergman said he could see Monday night’s play coming as he watched at home. He noticed that players were starting to take advantage of replacement officials struggling to keep control of the game.

“The last play of the game was something that was going to happen sooner or later,” Bergman said. “It gave us and the league an opportunity to get together and hammer out a deal that was going to get hammered out anyway.”

Referee Ed Hochuli, who led weekly tests and conference calls for officials to stay sharp during the lockout, declined to say whether the replacements made the right call.

“You really don’t want to see that,” Hochuli said. “You don’t want to see the controversy. You don’t want to see teams lose games that they shouldn’t have lost, if indeed that’s what happened. We’re not making a judgment on that.”

Now, the refs have to get used to being fan favorites.

The officials that worked Thursday night’s game between the Baltimore Ravens and Cleveland Browns were cheered from the moment they walked onto the field. The difference between the regular crew and replacements was clear. The officials kept the game in control, curtailing the chippy play and choppy pace that had marred the first three weeks of the regular season.

Referee Gene Steratore said the support “was something that kind of chokes you up.”

Officials on Friday said they were ready for applause — and ready for when it inevitably disappears.

“You’re not really beloved by the public. You’re tolerated. And to see that type of reception that our guys got last night was really heartwarming,” said Bergman, who will head to Green Bay for Sunday’s game, one week after Packers players ripped the replacements for calling Monday’s disputed play a touchdown.

“After the euphoria of the moment wears off, probably sometime early in the second quarter, it’ll be back to regular NFL football mode,” Bergman said. “Players will be questioning our judgment, our ancestry. Coaches will be screaming at us. And it’ll be life as back to normal on Sundays.”

___

AP Sports Writers Joseph White and Rachel Cohen and AP Pro Football Writer Barry Wilner contributed to this story.

___

Online: http://bigstory.ap.org/NFL-Pro32 and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL

More Nomaan Merchant.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations