Chiefs Bye Week Take

Got a bye week this week, earliest of them this season. Good time though to continue working out what we'll do with our wide receiver situation. Many are enamored with the idea that we'll get Tyreek back. Ehh, maybe. I think we should just bring up Andrew Armstrong, see what he's got, and work Jalen Royals, Cyrus Allen, and Brashard Smith into the mix much more.

Meanwhile, a lot of talk is about the officiating, especially since a couple of officials were disciplined for belligerently mixing it up a bit with some players. Huh, I wonder if it is getting under their skin a bit from the pressure they have to get every single call exactly correct -- or, huh, the Scorecasting expectations that things go the way the NFLers want them to go.

Putting the Scorecasting intimation aside for now, the news article mentions that the number of penalties assessed so far this year is inordinately high. Naturally that could be simply because players are just committing more fouls. There is the idea, however, that refs are just calling too many things that really shouldn't be called, and they're under duress for not calling things everyone is screaming they should call.

Ha, Chiefs fans know all about that. I'd committed this blogging year to not say anything about the reffing as I have in the past, however justified my grievances have been. But, well, I'm going to break that rule now and mention that at least half-a-dozen times in this past Raiders game the Chiefs were jobbed on non-calls, I mean really obvious non-calls you'd see if you looked at the film -- holding and PIs are the main culprits. As much as the Raiders had a terrific game plan against us and they played a fine football game, the Chiefs still should've won by two touchdowns.

But yeah, every fan of every team has their issues with the officiating, I get it.

I can't help but emphasize that there are two terrific ways to make this better, just make it so the pressure is off the on-field officials and we can be sure the calls are as correct as they can be. I've shared both of them a number of times before in this blog effort, but, well, I'm just a podunk little blogger guy. It'd be nice if someone got the memo not just because I'm sharing it but because it is the truth. Sorry, it is. To wit:

Number one, get two officials in the booth, looking at monitors of every play throughout the game, right there at the stadium not just in New York somewhere, each one looking at all the angles of every play in real time, and having original play-officiating authority -- meaning they can make a call right away and make it stick just like the on-field referee. I do believe that on-field guy should indeed have the final final say, but this would go a long way to ensuring the calls are good and the on-field officials are not so pressured to make one call or another that'll just affect them emotionally when everyone wants to kill them.

Number two gets at the kinds of calls that are the ones that are most troublesome. The procedure calls and personal foul calls are generally not that much of a problem -- even the holding calls from linemen are for-the-most part pretty well adjudicated. Yeah there are times when we scream about a lineman holding our guy and they don't call it or our guy didn't and they call it. But you know? I've realized most times they do get those right, let's just face it, and those calls are really not the ones that so dramatically affect outcomes. It's not perfect, but all OLs are holding all time anyway, and it does relatively even out.

The ones that do affect outcomes, big-time? And the ones they eff up all the time? You know what they are.

Pass interference and defensive holding calls and non-calls.

Not going to get into the ugly details because we all know them. I will emphatically repeat the solution, and I know some may not like it, but hear me out, and I do hope whatever NFL officially official officianados out there will seriously consider it. It is, very simply:

No touching at all by receiver or defender as receivers run their routes.

Thuh end.

Is this simply too hard to legislate and then enforce on the field?

Please. Just nothing, no touching grabbing reaching jostling AT ALL.

I know it may be considered draconian, but trust me, it'll work. 

Yes, if a player even touches another player he is covering or being covered by: penalty. If they both do it, off-setting and replay the down. I do concede any patently incidental contact or instances when one player very accidentally bumps into another player -- those instances when a player has position and is run into -- these things may be adjudicated appropriately, yes, with the help of those monitor watching officials.

I do know people will screech What if it happens all the time? That means MORE penalties and we want fewer! And how many offsetting penalties and replaying down after down after down must we endure?!

I get it, all understandable concerns, but after a while, the players will get it and simply do good route running and play good pass defense. That's what we want to see. As it is there're far too many PI and DH calls and right now it's killing the game and wrecking the refs. Also I believe when there are so many called penalties the officials may be unwittingly thinking we'd better hold back because there are just too many of these happening right now, and then they don't make the calls they should be making! (Do Chiefs fans know about that...)

Oh but what if games are 78-74 with all the scoring from easier passing games?

Ummm, that kind of makes my point. And why do games have to be that high scoring if defenses actually do a good job of defending passes? Wow, what a concept!

Once again, if a defender is not going after the ball and he even remotely touches the defender in the activity of not---going---after---the---ball---itself, then it is a PI. If a receiver reaches his arms out for even the teensiest of contact with a defender as he goes into his route, it is a penalty. If that ball is arriving to the receiver and both players are jostling each other... IT --- IS --- A PENALTY.

I am certain that after a while the players will get it, and they will start working to be really good passing game football players, and the best part is we don't have to deal with all the insanity of screeching about the calls we should get but don't and the calls we don't get but should and all the penalties one way or the other and the emotional roller coaster ride we all have to endure from all this nonsense.

There. Now go tell everyone else especially those who run this thing, because, um, yeah, otherwise it'll just be more of the same. 

Yet, again, yeah, if the NFLers are still getting what they want no matter how destructive it is to competitive integrity, well, then, yeah...

Nothing will get done.

Or some other dumb idea will come down the way, and, well, that's the NFL for you.

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