I apologise, I keep showing up in these columns like to non-American I am extolling the virtues of non-American games to Americans (which means you can say "Go to Hell with your rugby and cricket crap" if you want: I would if I were you), but why is it necessary to have a zebra make the call, THEN go to the booth? My understanding is that then puts the burden of truth on the booth: meaning they must find CONCLUSIVE evidence to overturn. The Roethlisberger TD immediately was in doubt. Why not have a field zebra NOT make the call, and let the booth make the call? (while remaining on the mic with them, offering their own opinion as they saw it). This is the bit, where I say "In Cricket . . . " . . . so anyway, in cricket, it the umpire can call on the 3rd umpire to make the call for run-outs (too much to explain, but stay with me), by making a 'TV Replay" signal. It removes almost entirely any doubt, and even if the call is still a coin-toss, it still mitigates the charge of bias to a certain degree. Honestly, there was an element of the "Ah, the hell with it" call by the field ump on that TD. I feel there was enough reasonable doubt on the TD. I probably would have said "no TD" myself.

The technology involved in today's broadcast is obviously as good as it's ever been, which is a boon to the viewer and an absolute curse to the official. Multiple cameras with multiple angles and multiple speeds pretty much leave nary a square inch of the gridiron uncovered or unable to be broken down to the molecular level. Any given play on any given Sunday, which occur at literally breakneck speed between men the size of small cars, can be slowed to the nanosecond, zoomed to the millimeter, and scrutinized under the cozy artificial conditions of non-instantaneous judgment.

The officials, unfortunately, are saddled with the constraints of limited human senses.

True, instant replay gives them somewhat of a reprieve. But that only affects the small percentage of completed plays that are actually reviewable, and it's nearly impossible to expand that universe of reviewable plays without significantly altering the manner in which the game is played and the time it takes to play it. Games are too long as it is...more replay reviews would completely destroy whatever continuity is left in the game (no thanks to you, Mr. TV Timeout).

Until the Japanese invent a robot official that has the same abilities as modern day digital video equipment, the problem seems like it will only get worse before it gets better. Football could consider some rules changes, but it won't change the fact that it, like virtually all sports, is a game of inches...but is judged by men.

Therefore, I propose as a solution that we revert back to 1991 game technology - no super slo-mo, no overhead cam on guy-wires, no 75 camera angles that can zoom in on every drip of sweat that trickles off every offensive lineman's nostrils. The ignorant fan is the happy fan - if nobody ever knows that the receiver's toe actually knicked a blade of white-painted sideline grass, the referees can continue doing their job - making instantaneous decisions on events that are over before they start - anonymously, just how they want it.

Just checking back to see if the clowns are getting ready to high dive in to a washtub. Well, they're not. That would take courage.

According to this claptrap, we're supposed to take seriously the standard PR statements of players coached to be publicly gracious after a loss. Statements like, We got outplayed. (They didn't - read Kevin Hench's far superior writing on the subject.)

At the same time, we're supposed to ignore the words of the player who actually had the ball.

That's what we're being asked to do here.

That player said he told his coach at the time, "I didn't get it."

Not, "I don't think I got it." Not, "I'm not sure if I got it or not." Not, "I'm afraid I didn't get it."

"I didn't get it." Period.

He had the ball, he was looking straight down at the goal line... and the play had just been ruled a TD. (Well, ruled a TD after it was ruled something else, which our referee anthropologist has been strangely unable to explain.)

And he STILL told his coach he didn't get it. Definitively.

But you all know better.

As for the contact, look up initiated, then watch your precious DVR. Hope made contact with Jackson, not the other way around, not mutual. A much larger player moved in on him, was jostling with him, and his reactions were strictly defensive. Jackson's "push" could just as easily have been part of disengaging without being pushed off balance himself, which is exactly what it was.

With the late call, though I did pose a question about it, suggesting anohter possibility, I honestly can't claim to know why the ref didn't throw the flag immediately.

I'm so very impressed that someone else can.

So, let's recap: You people know everything better than everyone else, and that includes even the players on the field; you even know what the ref was thinking (and there's apparently no other possibility - hey, thanks for the salute).

That's why this is a clown show.

It amazes me how similar the arguments are to, say, the 2000 elections discussion. Kinda scary that. I think there's something here about how we get ourselves in such bad positions when it comes to things that do matter.

(I mean, in this, there's really no doubt, yet someone writes a clownish, spirited defense of what everyone knows not to be true. Same sort of blinkered, don't-confuse-me-with-the-facts denial we saw in the Florida.)

And it's troubling that FOX (FOX! Of all sources!), which broadcasts NFL and has a lot to lose if people think the game isn't credible, is running an honest and accurate discussion of what happened - even from someone who should be just gloating about how right he was, while a writer for Salon, which has nothing to lose here, can't seem to come up with the same skill, courage or integrity.

What's even more pathetic is that we're spending time discussing this.

Even worse, that I'm discussing it, and with clowns.

(Good point, by the way, tbrandel, about the cameras - I wonder why they don't put in fifty cameras so there'd always be good angles on the plays. There's so much that could've been moved forward that hasn't. Why not a transmitter in the ball? No more iffy spots. Maybe they want the leeway... for some reason. Maybe so we can have idiotic discussions like this one.)

Paul Allen, the Seahawks billionaire owner, with two personal 767s and about a half-billion dollar yacht fleet, gets a little payment anytime anyone in Seattle buys a toy for their kid, whether that person will ever watch football in their lives or not. I guess it's OK. Since there are absolutely no other problems left that could use funding in Seattle, they might as well give it to a billionaire.

That's what we ought to be discussing.