RamView year in review: refereeing

NFL officiating was criticized as much this season as it was 2012, the year of the replacement referee fiasco. Called on to protect QBs and receivers, the zebras repeatedly erred on the side of "safety" and hit defenses with costly personal fouls for perfectly clean shoulder-to-shoulder or shoulder-to-chest hits, a trend that struck at the very heart of what makes football football. They further struck the game with some of the sloppiest officiating we've seen in years, missing calls that should made easily, losing control of games and simply failing to enforce the rulebook correctly. The Cowboys might have lost out on a playoff berth because no one caught a clock error after a big play in their loss to the Eagles. The Steelers were jobbed out of the playoffs because an illegal FG block attempt wasn't called at the end of the week 17 Chiefs-Chargers game. No one ever claims NFL officials have an easy job. But every call they make (or don't) is really important, and this year they had one of the worst years they've ever had. Ranking the officials for their performance in Rams games in 2013:

USA Today

1. Bill Leavy (A, win at Houston), missed the call at the end of that Chiefs-Chargers game and was held out of the playoffs

2. Clete Blakeman (A-, win vs. Big Dead), worked divisional playoff

3. Mike Carey, not selected for postseason (B, win vs. New Orleans)

4. Tony Corrente (B, win vs. Jagwires), worked the AFC Championship

5. Gene Steratore (B, loss vs. Seattle), worked the NFC Championship

6. John Parry (B, win vs. Tampa)

7. Terry MacAulay (C-, win at Indianapolis), worked the Super Bowl and is therefore considered the NFL's best referee (C-, win at Indianapolis)

8. Peter Morelli (D, loss vs. Tennessee), called a divisional playoff

9. Walt Coleman (D, loss at San Francisco)

10. Jerome Boger (D, win vs. Chicago), called Michael Brockers for a helmet-to-helmet hit after he hit Josh McCown in the chest with his shoulder, one of the worst calls in the league all season. Worked Super Bowl XLVII but did not call a playoff game this year. 

11. Jeff Triplette, D average. Worked two Rams losses, vs. 49ers and at Seattle, and was awful in both. The Seattle game included the infamous play where Kendall Langford was ejected for accidentally hitting an official's cap. Triplette has always been one of the league's worst referees. Leave it to the Rams' luck to get him twice in one season.

12. Carl Cheffers, F for loss at Dallas where the crew was completely in the tank for the Cowboys. Dallas was completely immune from even blatant holding penalties and they let Dez Bryant simply shove Cortland Finnegan down in the end zone to catch a TD pass. Still considered good enough to work the 49ers-Panthers playoff game.

13. Scott Green, F-minus for loss at Atlanta where the crew was completely in the tank for the Falcons. Blew an offside call that turned Atlanta's opening possession from a 3-and-out to a TD drive. Green retired after the season and I would hope the Rams did not get him a gift.

14. Bill Vinovich, F-minus-minus for two awful performances, road losses at Carolina and San Francisco. Carolina got away with whatever they wanted after snaps, including Mike Mitchell taunting on the Ram sideline over a fallen and injured for the season Sam Bradford, while the Rams got all the flags and Chris Long ejected from the game for what turned out to be nothing on further review. Seven Panther fans pulled out of the stands would have called a fairer game. Another game that tipped on a blown offsides call, which should be one of the easiest calls for any official to make correctly. My impression is that the Rams complained to the league for getting stuck with the horrid Vinovich a second time, and they should have. The crew was incompetent. And still, he and Triplette both worked playoff games. They're come of the best we have, says the NFL!

The Rams did not have a game called by Walt Anderson, Ed Hochuli or Ron Winter; the first two called wild-card games.

Looking ahead: These grades may mainly tell you I think officiating sucks when the Rams lose and it's great when they win, and the league kept 3 of my top 6 referees out of the playoffs. But I think it's fair to assert that these rankings also show the Rams weren't good enough last season to overcome bad refereeing. They don't help themselves with the atrocious number of legitimate penalties they commit, though, and are not going to budge off the 7-win mark without smarter and more disciplined play. The refereeing grades are not likely to improve and it will be up to the Rams to improve their way out of this problem. That will be a lot harder with referees second-guessing every solid hit the Ram defense makes because they know Gregg Williams is on the sideline. RamView's not hopeful of improvement in this area in 2014.

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