Today's column will address an issue that I've grappled with for quite some time. I've never gotten a chance to write about it, so now seemed like as good a time as ever, seeing as Ryan and I will be covering the sports world's most pressing issue -- who will win the World Series -- in Monday's edition of "Toe to Toe".
As I'm sure many of you football fans already know, Ed Hochuli, by far the NFL's best known and most experienced referee, blew a couple of key calls early on this season. The first came in week two, when the Broncos were on the one-yard line in the final minute.
The Broncos made the inexplicable decision to pass on second down with just one yard to go before the endzone. I don't purport to be an expert on play calling, but I can't help but think that it is almost invariably a less-than-ideal decision to pass from the one-yard line with the outcome of the game hanging in the balance. Either way, the Broncos decided to pass, and Cutler lost control of the football after dropping back from center.
Hochuli's immediate ruling was an incomplete pass, but a review of the play revealed that it was in fact a fumble by Cutler. Hochuli even admitted that he had blown the whistle too soon and should have called the play a fumble, giving San Diego possession of the ball with almost no time left on the clock.
Unfortunately for the Chargers, the call did not go their way, and the ball was given back to Denver at the 10-yard line where it had hit the ground after slipping out of Cutler's grasp.
The Broncos went on to win the game (on an even more risky two-point conversion), and Hochuli became public enemy number one in the eyes of Charger fans. He received a slew of threats and e-mails and handled the situation with the utmost class. In fact, his apology was, in my view, unnecessarily sycophantic.
An official with Hochuli's resum -- 18 years of service, including two Super Bowls and five conference championship -- should not have to apologize to grandstanding idiots for making one bad call. It's embarrassing to insinuate that he should.
Things got worse two weeks later, when Hochuli (maybe because the unnecessary backlash got in his head?) made another uncharacteristic bad call when he wiped out an interception return for a touchdown on a controversial penalty against Carolina's Julius Peppers. Again, he felt the effects of the backlash heavily.
What we should take away from Hochuli's mistakes is not that NFL officiating is currently in a poor state, but rather that it's an exceedingly difficult profession, and its employees need to be compensated more handsomely.
Currently, NFL referees made between $25,000 to $75,000 annually. Baseball umpires collect between $100,000 and $300,000 per year, and NBA officials pull in about the same.
Figuring out the reason for the discrepancy isn't all that difficult -- NFL officials only work 16 games, compared to the 81 and 162 that their counterparts make in baseball and basketball, respectively.
I have a particularly difficult time rationalizing this logic, though. The bottom line is, professional sports (especially the Big Three) are huge industries in America. Football, as it stands now, is bigger than the other two.
Though NFL officials like Hochuli might work fewer hours, they still play the same integral role in ensuring a fair outcome. And the kicker is, their job is vastly more difficult.
NFL referees must perform under more difficult circumstances -- the field they cover is among the largest and certainly the most crowded.
The number of calls they have to make are fewer, but the repercussions of a bad call are far worse than in other professional sports.
Unlike baseball umpires, who have 162 games and many more routine calls to judge, football officials have to shoulder the added burden of limited opportunity and more severe consequences for their missteps. In light of these facts, I see no reason why they shouldn't be compensated equally.
