Stars in their eyes

So the match-up is set for the Super Bowl this year. The league's two top teams will go head to head in the big game in New York and it's certain to be another fun game. And why wouldn't it be? That's the peak of any sport, isn't it? Watching, waiting to see who is crowned the league's best-it's what we wait the whole season for.

But the NFL has already crowned some top performers. Did you know that? Officials are rated and ranked throughout the year by the league. That's why the refs have numbers on their backs. Did you know that? At any rate, the top officials at each position- referee, umpire, back judge and so on-are then given the chance to call games in the playoffs.

By the time the AFC and NFC championship games roll around, the league sends out it's absolute best teams of rules enforcers. And that's a pretty horrifying realization. Horrifying for two particular plays in the NFC championship game.

Let's throw out all of the things that could have been or might have been called but weren't. Never mind, for instance, that Craig Dahl is still looking for the jersey one of the Seahawks ripped off of him during Doug Baldwin's long kick return. Stuff like that happens all the time and isn't called.

Let's instead focus on two plays that were called. First, there's the "running into the kicker" call on a punt late in the third quarter. A defensive player from Seattle made contact with punter Andy Lee on Lee's plant leg (the one that doesn't kick the ball). The penalty is "roughing" the kicker for that infraction. And it's not a matter of interpretation or of severity. Seattle's Chris Maragos, the guilty party in this case, didn't hit Lee hard. But that's like saying someone was barely out of bounds. Did he hit his plant leg, yes or no? Obviously he did and obviously the officials saw it-hence, the "running into" flag. The only place Maragos could have hit Lee was in his plant leg, therefore, it should have been roughing the kicker and an automatic first down.

Does that mean the Niners would have driven and scored? No. But even if they hadn't moved the ball another inch and Lee connected on the very same punt (42 yards) Seattle would have had the ball around their own 25 rather than their own 40. Certainly San Francisco would have settled for that.

Another important call was the non-fumble near the goal line in the fourth quarter. The ruling in this case has been talked about for all of the wrong reasons. The fumble, which was clearly ripped away and possessed by NaVorro Bowman in a replay, was ruled to have been recovered by Seattle. The recovery is non-reviewable and cannot be challenged. At any rate, the Niners recovered a fumble on the very next play, so no harm no foul. That's the consensus among football analysts. But there is harm. And here's why: Bowman had possession of the ball while standing up. As he and Jermaine Kearse were hit from behind, he continued to possess the ball. He went to the ground and was still clearly in possession of the ball. A pileup obstructing the view of Bowman and the ball didn't happen until after he was on the ground.

So where's the harm, you ask? That this group of seven officials, elite, all star officials, couldn't see that. The problem isn't that the 49ers didn't get possession. The problem is these officials didn't see a blatantly obvious call. Bowman was in clear, unobstructed possession of the ball for maybe two seconds at worst and as many as four seconds at best and 14 elite, all star eyes didn't see it. Four seconds might not seem like much time, but it's enough for a reasonable fast baseball player (Angel Pagan, say) to run from home to first. For an elite NFL official, an unobstructed view of someone in possession of a ball for two seconds is a lifetime. If these highest of high caliber officials can't see the simplest of plays like that, what hope do they have on difficult plays? What hope still do non-all star officials have? Think about that for a moment, forgetting, of course, that there are two officials on the sidelines specifically looking to see where the ball is when it's near the goal line.

And if officials can't see things they are looking for, what is the point of having them on the field? Maybe it's to "let them play," as one color analyst said of Richard Sherman's especially physical brand of manhandling an opponents shoulder pads that we then call press coverage. Except, that's not the point of officials. The officials are there to enforce rules, not "let them play." Seems even the very best the NFL has to offer can't even do that to a satisfactory degree.