Uncalled Cheap Shots

[Brad]

Originally Posted by fiasco

I'm not criticizing the early comments in the thread. I thought they were spot on.

I'm not defending the officiating in the video one bit.

I'm criticizing some of the comments that have come late in the thread that have said something to the effect of "a competent official would have fouled his a$$ out long before it got to foul #5."

It's officiating machismo, IMO, based on a lot of assumption and very little fact.

I'm all for officials. I've got the back of my officiating brethren. No one is saying that they are better than these officials. Just because you say, "Here is what *I* would have done in the situation..." does not mean that you are comparing yourself to them.

The fact is that these officials did a poor job. Period. It's not really even debatable. That doesn't make them bad officials or people. It just means that in this game they did a poor job.

It's easy for me (and others) to say that they would have fouled #34 out. Why? Because we have been there. We've had "that guy" in our game. Many times. And we took care of him. Maybe not early on in our careers, before we knew any better, but as we gained experience. We learned what to look for to avoid problems in our games, so when we see a guy like #34 he sticks out like a sore thumb and we think, "That's our guy."