Actually, I was a little harsh saying that the replacement referees "hosed" Green Bay. These guys have just been put into a situation in which they are doomed to fail. I think all of these guys are trying to do the best job they can. If they had not been willing to step up and referee these games, there would have not been any football. I remember once being in a situation where I was over my head, due to my inexperience. It is not a good feeling. I think Pete Carroll (Seahawks Coach) expressed it very well.
"It's time for it to be over," Carroll said. "It's time for this to be over. My hat's off to these officials. They're doing everything they can to do it as well as they can. They have great pride. They're working their tails off. It demonstrates how difficult it is. It's a very, very complex process to handle these games and make these decisions. There's nothing easy about it, and it takes years and years of experience to pull it off properly and in a timely fashion and keep the flow of the game alive and all that.