Sports

Hail yeah! NFL finally makes right call on refs

The NFL finally woke up and threw a Hail Mary on fourth-and-wrong that will have football fans, players and coaches across America dancing in the end zone.

The replacement refs are being replaced. Tonight in Baltimore for Browns-Ravens.

Sunday. Sunday night. Monday night.

Hail yeah!

The return of the real referees means we have gotten our real game back, the game we pay the NFL with our dollars and hearts and minds, instead of the replacement game it became Monday night when the Packers wuz robbed by America’s Most Unwanted.

Faster than you can say Namath-to-Maynard, or Brady-to-Gronkowski, fourth-and-wrong turned dramatically into first-and-goal last night, the goal being the triumphant return of order on the field, and the trust of a sickened paying public off it.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, representing the owners, hard-liners and voices of moderation, punched the deal across the plane of the goal line late last night, so that no longer can the replacement refs be seen as a referendum on the integrity of the game.

Mathias Kiwanuka was asked yesterday how the real refs will be received around the country when they return.

“Standing ovation,” Kiwanuka told The Post.

“Whenever they come back, they’ve been off for a while, you don’t want to expect greatness from them on the first day, because we don’t want crucify them too if they make a few bad calls. We got to give them some time to get back into it. But we do expect it to be a significant step up from the guys we have right now.”

The NFL heard the nation’s outcry and recognized the folly of its ways and thankfully placed its arrogance and stubbornness on injured reserve for the reminder of the season.

“When you talk about players feeling like they can get away with certain things, a lot of that will end and the game will go back to normal,” Kiwanuka said. “I think it’s a very controlled game when the regular refs are out there, and a lot of times in the past couple of weeks, the control has been lost, and that’s not the way the game should be played.”

No replacement ref Jets fan working Jets-49ers.

No replacement ref telling LeSean McCoy he has him on his fantasy team.

No longer will the Super Bowl champs have to defend their crowns in a chump league, arbitrated by chump officials.

No longer will the champs — or anyone else — have to fear for their safety because of unqualified referees.

“The main reason that I would say I want the regular refs back out there is because I don’t want to go out there and get hurt on a play that shouldn’t have been allowed to happen in the first place,” Kiwanuka said.

Of course there will be blown calls. Of course there will be wild-eyed fury over perceived injustices, To err is human, but at least now the very best humans will be erring.

“I think it’s going to still be issues when the real guys come back, because they’re going to be rusty, they haven’t had the preseason to practice their craft,” Justin Tuck said.

No one comes to the games to watch the umpires in baseball. No one comes to the games to watch Alphonse and Gaston choke on their whistle. The NFL needed the real referees back three weeks ago, and if there ever was a time and a place where there would be every danger that these replacement refs could have lost control of a game, it was Sunday night at Lincoln Financial Field, a raucous, riotous, venomous jungle where Giants hate Eagles and Eagles hate Giants and no prisoners, or ballerinas, are ever taken.

If there ever was a time and a place where zebra babes in the woods could have been intimidated and influenced by the mob, it is Sunday night at the Linc.

“Another Sunday night game the world’s watching, and all eyes are going to be on them, which is unfortunate,” Tuck said before peace was at hand. “Where normally, in a game like this, eyes are going to be on Eli [Manning], or [Michael] Vick, or [LeSean] McCoy, or [Victor] Cruz, or JPP [Jason Pierre-Paul] or whoever. … Those are the people that normally the fans are going to watch.”

The real referees won’t cower in The City of Brotherly Shove, where Big Blue predators will be relentlessly growling at a fearless and brittle Michael Vick.

One more week would have been one week too many for this horror show to continue.

Just ask the Packers.

Kiwanuka watched the end of the Packers-Seahawks in stunned disbelief.

“It shouldn’t have had to come down to that, but I’m just glad it wasn’t us in that kind of a game,” he said.

Do you still worry it could be you?

“It can always happen, until the real refs get back out there — and even after the real refs get back out there.

“But I’ll take my chances with the regular refs any day.”

We all will. Hail yeah!