Under the current system the NFL operates on, penalties are non-reviewable by the referees. It is up to their naked eye to determine whether to make a call or not, and at full speed, the game of football is fast; too fast to be 100% accurate. The referees go through extensive training to become qualified, but week after week, we see missed calls that determine the outcome of games. It’s painful to see a team lose not because they were beaten by their opponent, but because the refs didn’t do their job.

An example of this happening was near the end of the week 6 matchup between the Seahawks and the Falcons. A clear pass interference that was not called would have given the Falcons the ball deep in Seahawks territory, but the yellow laundry never hit the turf. The Falcons turned the ball over on downs and that was the game. The Seahawks won by playing dirty. In week 10, the Patriots were on the one yard line of the Seahawks (seeing a pattern here?) with a few seconds left to play. That one play was going to determine the game. Tom Brady threw a fade to Rob Gronkowski, but the ball fell incomplete. The safety in coverage clearly held Gronkowski’s arms, which would have been a holding penalty. The call was never made. The game was again decided by inconsistent judging by the refs.

The argument against making penalties reviewable is that it would ruin the integrity of the game, and there would be no need for refs at all, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. The integrity of the game would be upheld if the right calls were being made. Fans are starting to lose faith in the referees. Reviewing penalties would only act as a backup to the referees. There is no shame in having a fallback in case a call is missed.

Not only that, but the referees employed by the NFL don’t even work full time. It is a part time job. Making the job full time would mean more dedicated and better trained referees. The NFL owns a day of the week. There is room in the budget to pay the salaries for full time refs.

Enough of the bad calls and the non-calls. It’s time we let the teams decide who wins the game, not the refs.