Throughout the first three weeks of the NFL season, I, like most people, made fun of the replacement refs and their seemingly endless blunders. But secretly, I felt really bad for them, because they were just average bros living a dream of calling penalties on the world’s largest stage. Granted, some of the replacement refs had been fired from the Lingerie Football League and Lance Easley wasn’t even qualified to ref college games, but they’re still people with real emotions.
And now that the real refs are back to make calls to piss us all off, the scabs are speaking out about what it was like to be hated by every NFL fan in America. Are they going to over-embellish their hardships with horrible analogies, comparing themselves to the Son of God? You bet your red flagged asses.
“My daughter found the ‘Call Me Maybe’ video they did of us and showed it to me, and I had to laugh,” said Jeff Sadorus, a former college official who worked as a field judge during the recent lockout of the N.F.L.’s regular officials. “Honestly, sometimes during this whole thing it felt like the national pastime in this country had changed from football to bashing replacement officials.”
He added: “Everyone wanted perfection, but come on: the last guy who was perfect they nailed to a cross. And he wasn’t even an official.” (New York Times, H//T to Deadspin)
Shut up. Just shut up.
The replacement refs were paid $3,000 a game to live a dream, and if they walked onto those fields each week thinking that fans, players and coaches were going to love and embrace them, then they’re even dumber than we angrily, irrationally called them during games. They knew what they were getting themselves into, and bad calls didn’t help. Sure, those calls were bound to happen, and I’m glad they’re sharing their stories, because it’s always interesting to hear about how insane sports fans can be.
But don’t drag Jesus into this. He’s trying to enjoy being a Notre Dame fan for once.
