Its not because of my team, the Denver Broncos, who experienced years of pain at the hand of underachievement and the unspoken "bad luck' of having underwhelming box office appeal. Denver finally won a couple of Superbowls, and even our recent absence from the top of the mountain doesn't discount Pat Bowlen's drive to stick our flag atop the heap. We may have withdrawals from missing our crown, but it doesn't make us Detroit, or Cleveland who has to consider the success of the Baltimore Ravens with either envious joy or envious pain. Denver is no longer another Buffalo team where the Bills came excruciatingly close to winning but failed 4 times during their key championship runs.Denver is not hapless or hopeless. The Broncos have won and can certainly win again...maybe even soon. The Detroit Lions are loaded with talent and can finally consider themselves a legitimate championship caliber team as well, but what Denver, Detroit and every other team in the NFL has no hope of ever being is America's most beloved team. The Dallas Cowboys own that title and that title dictated that the pass interference flag had to be picked up lest the selection of Tony Romo for NFL MVP be soiled along with that soiled flag that got usurped by the powers that be.
Denver is not Detroit, the sad victim of this sad story, and we are certainly not the Minnesota Vikings.
My stepfather (RIP) was a HUGE Viking fan- the same Vikings who are the victims behind the story of the Hail Mary pass itself. Prior to this mysterious officiating foible, the Hail Mary was called the Alley Oop pass. On this fateful day, Roger Staubach (a Catholic) admitted to throwing the pass to teammate Drew Pearson and then praying "Hail Mary" after it left his hand. Mary didn't cure any blind men, but she might have created a few out of the officials who did not call a rather obvious push-off by Pearson that allowed him to make the key touchdown. As Pearson raced to the end zone, stories say an orange was thrown from the Minnesota stands that flashed past national television cameras giving Viking fans- like my stepfather- the false impression that a flag had been thrown- and then mysteriously picked up for some un-American reason that, once again favored America's Team.
When dad discovered that their was no flag on the play, his anger had him attempting to make a call to the national offices of the NFL to voice his displeasure. Since this was the mid-70's, mom found the approach- and the yellow pages that he used to find Pete Rozell- to be a bit excessive. We kids joined her more reasonable bandwagon. Besides, my dad was the only Viking fan in the house and this was hardly the Broncos that were falling victim to the corporate compulsion towards America's Team, so what did we care? In hindsight, dear old dad might have been on to something.
Why did they ever decide to create a national headquarter for officiating "support" if not to take away some of the power that allows on-field officiating crews to screw up the story line.
Did the officials officially hand Dallas the victory over Detroit? NO! But they did do their best to keep the story line intact even when an obvious call threatened to curtail it. My hunch, once again, was that this has everything to do with the up and coming MVP announcement that has all flags pointing in the direction of Romo.
NFL officials, to the chagrin of many, are part time employees who do other really important things for a career which could impact their ability to obey the company instruction to remain "fair and balanced" like FOX news (wink, wink). The general fan should hope that these guys maintain the integrity of the job by never letting it become their career, yet politics even exist in little league sports so the NFL is highly vulnerable to it. Good ol' boy referee's get the good ol' boy jobs while guys with integrity ref little league for life. Even if you would like to call the game like you see it, today's NFL referee knows that New York video officials (the bosses) are watching and insist on changing the call as needed. NFL fans who would like to see full time officiating should see that we've got it already in the form of New York city big bosses. What might have been called an effort to speed up the game is now an entity of responsibility. Who is chosen to officiate the game must be driven by the New York big bosses since now, the final call reflects more on the process than the people. Integrity's wish is that such administrative leanings would never bend unfairly towards the money, but sensibility knows better.
Did New York snatch a flag from the field for the sake of Romo's MVP story, America's Team. and a huge money making story line?
New York better be glad that dad passed away because his beef with them goes way back and Google is a stronger search engine than those Yellow Page books.
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