Must-see TV: Back off the refs

Jan. 31—There is a missed call in every single sporting event.

There might be a missed call on every single play in a football game.

There are times in which blatantly obvious calls are missed — sometimes even calls that directly affect the outcome of a game. Missed calls frustrate fans. With reason.

But, if you think your favorite team is the only one getting bad or missed calls that hurt them in a game, I have news for you.

Get over it. You're wrong.

Every team in every league at every single level has been affected by a poor call in some form or fashion this year. It's inevitable. Not only this year, but every year.

There has been a lot of buzz around the professional and college sports world recently about how poor officiating has been recently. Some say it's gotten worse this season than it's ever been in some leagues.

I don't agree with that. I don't see how we can be so adamant that officiating has been worse than ever before. Watching "This Just In" on ESPN on Tuesday, I heard the show's host, Max Kellerman, say he didn't think the calling of games had gotten any worse in the NFL this year.

Kellerman mentioned that we just have newer, better technology with an array of angles coming from those new cameras with better definition. With better equipment and more angles you are going to see more missed calls. and it doesn't help the officials out at all when you have a million social media officials sharing video to show us every missed call of every game.

I agree with him. The officiating isn't getting worse in my eyes. We're just seeing the mistakes more because of better technology and the presence of social media officials.

Don't be a social media official. If you were good enough to officiate games you would be paid to do it. There are professionals for a reason. They get paid. They study the rules and regulations of sports. They know what each and every call on the field or court is.

Do they always make the right call? No. But neither would you or I. That's why I try to keep my competitive nature from letting me get obnoxious as a fan. When I attend games as a fan I get upset when I see a missed call — or what I think is a missed call. I want to see my team win, just like anyone else.

As fans and parents or even players and coaches, what we have to understand is that this is a job that asks for near perfection from its employees every single day and we live in a very imperfect world. You and I could not do this job any better. Officials are asked to make the correct call in real time while we get the luxury of watching videos posted on the internet that are often slowed down for us to see the foul or whatever the case may be. Which is why video replay was instated for referees to see a slown down version of the play.

If we were judged based on how close to perfect we were at our jobs, we'd have plenty of people degrading us on social media every day, too. What if an official was able to come visit you at work and shout over your shoulder every single time you made a mistake?

I know I wouldn't like it very well.

I also understand that there will never come a day in which officials don't face scrutiny. They work in front of a massive audience every day. They will always be scrutinized.

Don't scrutinize officials so often.

Stop blaming a loss on officials.

Unless there is clear evidence that it directly affected the outcome, there are four quarters, two halves or 7-plus innings in most sports to do what it takes to win. Very rarely are those outcomes decided by officials. Yet we chose to blame them most times.

Back off the refs, would you?