Officially, the NFL has a problem

[Editor's note: This is our weekly entry at National Football Post.] After basking in the shadows of relative obscurity during the opening week of the season, the replacement referees found themselves struggling as if they were some intentionally mismatched contestants competing on a bizarre NFL reality show. The players, sensing that

Fumble scrum requires maximum officiating skills

The officials lost control of the Monday Night Football Game between the Atlanta Falcons and the Denver Broncos on one play.  The breakdown happened with :02 in the first quarter as Knowshon Moreno fumbled the ball and there was a huge pile up (video).  What followed was six minutes of

Monday night meltdown caps subpar week

While the first week of officiating was deemed "adequate," the quality of the replacement referees work declined significantly in Week 2. There were numerous instances of sloppy work and nonexistent calls that it was hard to single anything out to be representative. Until Monday night, that is, when Ken Roan's crew

SJ Stropolo yanked from Saints-Panthers

Replacement official's Facebook profile puts him on inactive list The NFL has removed side judge Brian Stropolo from today's Saints-Panthers game because of a professed allegiance to one of the teams, as first reported by Chris Mortensen. Stropolo is in Charlotte, N.C., and apparently was already at Bank of America Stadium

Replacement referee assignments, Week 2

We are expecting to get the officiating assignments piecemeal, rather than the full list. As we confirm, we will post here with the full spotters chart. In some cases, where the entire crew is not known to us, we have listed the crew that the head referee officiated with last