Sports

Packers fiasco just latest example of NFL referee madness

WILD BILL: An irate Bill Belichick flags down a replacement referee and grabs his left arm to dispute the last-second field goal that sent the Patriots to a loss Sunday night in Baltimore. (
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The NFL’s calamitous officiating situation officially became a debacle last night.

After a comedy of errors by the replacement referees on Sunday, the league’s lockout of its regular referees cost a team a game yesterday when the fill-ins botched the final play of the Seahawks’ 14-12 “victory” over the Packers in Seattle.

Despite obvious offensive pass interference on Seattle wide receiver Golden Tate and an equally obvious interception by Green Bay safety M.D. Jennings in the end zone, the replacements inexplicably awarded the game-winning TD to Tate and the Seahawks — a travesty summed up by two officials making opposite calls next to each other and compounded by the booth officials (who are not replacements) upholding it on replay.

The blowback was so intense — and no doubt will continue to be — that it could have been the tipping point for the owners and their point man, commissioner Roger Goodell, in the nearly four-month labor dispute. But then again, maybe not.

At least right up until the Seattle disaster, the owners had been sticking to their guns during negotiations with the NFL Referees Association over the weekend and yesterday, at the same time mistakes by the replacements were leaving players, coaches and fans spitting mad.

At least two of those coaches — Bill Belichick and Washington assistant Kyle Shanahan — are also facing hefty fines from the league after Belichick grabbed an official at the end of the Patriots’ 31-30 prime-time loss to the Ravens on Sunday and Shanahan sprinted down the tunnel at FedEx Field to berate the crew for botching the final seconds of the Redskins’ 31-24 loss to the Bengals.

New England linebacker Brandon Spikes was so upset by the refs’ performance in Baltimore that he wrote a profane insult to them on Twitter late Sunday night.

“Can someone please tell these f—— zebras foot locker called and they’re needed back at work!!!!” Spikes tweeted after the game, adding the hashtag “#BreakingPoint.”

Spikes had company from the Baltimore crowd during that game, as the fans grew so incensed by the inept showing of the zebras they chanted “Bulls—!” so loud that NBC’s Al Michaels was forced to acknowledge it on the national broadcast.

“There’s no seven-second delay for that,” Michaels said. “That’s the loudest manure chant I’ve ever heard.”

What set everyone off was a rolling avalanche of glaring mistakes and even ignorance of the rules by the fill-ins, all of whom are rejects or retirees from lower college conferences, Arena Football and even the Lingerie Football League because officials from major-college conferences were not approached.

Just a few examples of the carnage Sunday that set the stage for last night’s fiasco:

***Referee Ken Roan awarded 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh two replay challenges in the waning minutes of the Vikings’ 24-13 win in Minneapolis, though neither challenge should have been allowed because Harbaugh was out of time outs. Roan admitted yesterday he didn’t know the rule.

***The crew in Tennessee mistakenly gave the Titans 12 extra yards on a penalty mark-off in overtime against the Lions, putting Tennessee at the Detroit 29 instead of the Detroit 41 on the drive that resulted in a game-winning field goal.

***The Redskins were penalized 20 yards instead of 15 for unsportsmanlike conduct on their final drive of a 38-31 loss to the Bengals, and the officials never specified what the penalty was for or whom it was against. That prompted Shanahan (head coach Mike Shanahan’s son) to follow them into the tunnel and scream obscenities.

***There were five challenges in the Chiefs’ 27-24 overtime win at New Orleans — and all five calls by the replacement referees were overturned upon review. The refs even inexplicably sent a play for review after no original call was made on the field.

Concerns that the subpar officiating could affect player safety also played out, most glaringly in the Raiders’ 34-31 home win over the Steelers, when no flag was thrown after Pittsburgh safety Ryan Mundy delivered a vicious helmet-to-helmet hit to Oakland receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey that sent Heyward-Bay to the hospital with a neck injury.

But if the owners, who issued a statement after numerous officiating problems crept up in Week 2 saying the replacement officials were “performing admirably,” are feeling a sense of urgency to lift the lockout, they have yet to show it.

Goodell sat in on negotiating sessions between the league and the union over the weekend, and the sides met again yesterday over a dispute that centers mainly on what the officials say is a subtle effort to cut their pay and a not-so-subtle desire to eliminate their pension plan.

The NFL Players Association also weighed in over the weekend, criticizing the league and pressing the owners to settle the dispute.

But while the players and their union complain, they are in no position to do anything about it after agreeing to a no-strike clause in the collective bargaining agreement they signed with the owners in 2011.

bhubbuch@nypost.com

First and wrong

NFL replacement referees have given new meaning to “false start.” Here’s the worst of the worst calls from a blunderful three weeks of officiating:

* The crews of the Week 1 Seahawks-Cardinals game and the Week 2 Eagles-Ravens contest mistakenly award the Seahawks and the Ravens what amounted to an extra timeout by botching the two-minute warning.

* The Redskins were penalized 20 yards instead of 15 for unsportsmanlike conduct on their final drive of a 38-31 Week 3 loss to the Bengals, and the officials never specified what the penalty was for or whom it was against.

* There were five challenges in the Week 3 Saints-Chiefs game — and all five calls by the replacement referees were overturned upon review.

* Replacement official Brian Stropolo is stripped of his Week 2 assignment for Saints-Panthers after ESPN alerts the NFL to his Facebook page, which shows Stropolo is a huge Saints fan.

* Referee Ken Roan awards the 49ers two replay challenges in the waning minutes of a Week 3 loss to Leslie Frazier’s Vikings, neither of which should have been allowed because the Niners were out of timeouts.