{"id":2372,"date":"2025-01-10T12:17:25","date_gmt":"2025-01-10T18:17:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=2372"},"modified":"2025-01-10T12:17:25","modified_gmt":"2025-01-10T18:17:25","slug":"ive-had-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=2372","title":{"rendered":"“I’ve had it!”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Since I was a young boy growing up in west-central Iowa, I have been a fan of several sports. Baseball has always been my favorite, and football has been a close second. Not anymore. After watching the Minnesota Vikings vs. the Detroit Lions football game on NBC last Sunday night, I have made a choice to back away from football.<\/span><\/p>\n

The officiating was the worst I\u2019ve seen in a professional setting. At times, it was difficult to determine who was making the calls, the men in striped shirts, the replay assist, officials in New York, or bookmakers in Las Vegas.<\/span><\/p>\n

An obvious penalty of \u201cintentional grounding,\u201d wherein the quarterback just throws the ball out of his hands without a targeted and eligible teammate in the vicinity, was not called because the officials claimed there was an eligible receiver in the area. Not only was a potential receiver not in the immediate area, but the football also bounced off a lineman \u2013 an ineligible receiver \u2013 and the ensuing penalty would have been \u201ca five-yard penalty and loss of down.\u201d Making the situation worse was the fact that this misdemeanor occurred while the Detroit quarterback was in his own end zone. Had the violation been called correctly, the outcome would have been different, and it would have given the Vikings a fair advantage when they needed it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The bad calls didn\u2019t end there. Detroit moved the ball close to a first down. The officials called the movement short of a first down and ruled the play was fourth down with inches to go. Somewhere out of nowhere came a ruling that the player with the ball did in fact gain enough yardage to be credited with a first down. The \u201cout of nowhere\u201d was a replay assist. Where in hell was the replay assist in the previous incident?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In recent years, football broadcasters have had the enjoyment of utilizing retired officials who sit in the booth with them, or are tuned in to the broadcast remotely to comment on questionable calls. During the Vikings-Lions game the official was often critical of the calls, particularly calls of pass interference by the Lions\u2019 defensive players. It was frustrating, especially since Detroit\u2019s coach Don Campbell has in the past indicated that his team would commit violations because the officials couldn\u2019t possibly call a penalty on every one of them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Howard Cosell, the lawyer\/journalist\/broadcaster of Monday Night Football on ABC in the 1970s and early 80s and noteworthy fight announcer, said, \u201cI\u2019ve had it,\u201d as he walked away from professional boxing. Cosell made me think about boxing and how brutal it can be. Why do we as a civilized society get excited about two individuals beating the blood out of each other? However, Cosell stopped announcing boxing matches (except those with which he was under contract to announce), because he felt the sport needed reform to instill stronger, stricter safety regulations, a rating system based in integrity and federal oversight.<\/span><\/p>\n

It seems that football now needs federal oversight, given how gambling interests have permeated the sport. Sports commentators used to pick which team they thought would win the game. Now they pick using gambling jargon, for example point spreads. Advertising during pregame shows and during games heavily promote gambling. With so much gambling money attached to the outcome of these games, corruption should be expected. Maybe it will get so bad that the government will need to intervene, but probably not in my lifetime.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So, for now, I will continue to cheer for my Chiefs going to yet another Super Bowl and am getting excited for baseball season to begin. Go Royals! <\/span><\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

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Since I was a young boy growing up in west-central Iowa, I have been a fan of several sports. Baseball has always been my favorite, and football has been a close second. Not anymore. After watching the Minnesota Vikings vs. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[264,17],"tags":[1310,1306,1308,1309,919,1307,1311],"class_list":["post-2372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fairness","category-issues","tag-chiefs","tag-detroit-lions","tag-don-campbell","tag-howard-cosell","tag-minnesota-vikings","tag-nbc-sunday-night-football","tag-royals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2372"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2373,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2372\/revisions\/2373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}