Monday, 6 January 2003

NFL refereeing hijinks

You can tell a sport has too many rules when nobody has the faintest clue what rules apply on a botched field goal attempt that turns into an incomplete pass (due to defensive pass interference downfield) although there's an illegal man downfield with time expired. (Got all that?)

I've always thought the ineligible man downfield rule made absolutely no sense, but after this weekend I'm convinced most of the NFL's rulebook is similarly asinine. Terrell Owens is a walking exemplar of “unsportsmanlike conduct,” as he's proved for the past few years, yet he's not ejected while some poor Giants lineman is.