Greetings Tipsters
Referees, umpires, call them what you will, every sport has them and every fan is driven utterly bloody nuts by them at one point or another. American Football is no exception.
There’s a referee, he’s the bloke in charge, an umpire, head linesman, line judge, back judge, field judge and side judge. They work in teams, they’re part-timers, they’ve been making some terribly egregious and random calls this season. The edge rusher just broke the quarterback’s leg on a late hit? Nothing to see here. An O lineman made a fair block? Cancel that touchdown. Sometimes the NFL gets involved after the game, fining a skinny receiver $44,413 for a fair block that no-one noticed.
There was a string of doozies in last minutes of the Chiefs@Packers game. Packers got called for an out of bounds hit on Mahomes by the judge on the other side of the field, 53 yards away, that clearly wasn’t. It was on the broadcast booth side, everyone saw it. So, to balance it out I guess, on the next play a Green Bay defensive back jumped on the head of a Kansas City receiver before the ball was halfway through its long, arching trajectory and no flags were thrown.
They don’t blow whistles, they throw yellow flags. Coaches have red flags they can throw if they want to contest a decision, but they can only do it three times and lose a timeout if it doesn’t go their way. Bill Belichick has been known to do it just so he can ‘make a statement’ but that’s Bill. Imagine a combination of Mick Malthouse and Alistair Clarkson on $25M pa…
Bill seems to be hitting that point Mick did in his last two seasons. The nature of the game means that many NFL coaches are career coaches. Sure, they played in high school and might’ve been a third string quarterback in college, but coaching is their job. Look at Mike McDaniels, he’d get knocked over by a mild breeze. Detroit Lions have an unusually large number of ex-players on the coaching staff, led by Dan Campbell who has a lot less hair than he did as a player but otherwise looks as lean and fit as he did then. He drinks an alarming volume of extra strong coffee but has the team playing for him because they know that he knows what it’s like out on the field.
The Providence Rollovers, fka New England Patriots, have become the first team since 1938 to lose three straight games while conceding less than 10 points. Geez, they lost 6-0 to the Chargers last week. Bill’s always been a defence oriented coach, who had sixth-round pick Tom Brady to take care of the O. While I would hate to accuse anyone of tanking, which really only works in NBA, and Bill is a vociferous opponent of the practice, he does seem to be doing a great job of it, while securing his job for next year.
“See here, kid, we got a great D that’s full of castoffs, all we need is you to throw the ball and it’s back to Conference Championship games we go!”
“Is that what you told Mac Jones?”
Yeah, poor bastard, Mac. Had a good rookie season, got saddled with Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee running the O in his second year, is being swapped around with young backup Bailey Zappe this season, they do look remarkably similar, like a football version of ‘The Parent Trap’, and seems a hollow shell of what he could have been. In college, he was lauded for his mental skills, being calm, reading the play, he was slow on his feet and didn’t have the greatest arm but made up for it with his ‘intangibles.’ Now he’s lost his confidence, he doesn’t have anything.
For his sake, I hope the Pats trade him to a team that appreciates him. He could have a career turnaround like Jared Goff or he could be a career backup. One of the backup QB’s big jobs is to run the scout team, the practice squad and fringe players who study the upcoming opponent and run their plays against the first string D. Mac has the smarts for that, he could collect $8M a year for the next fifteen.
Cheers Tipsters
P&C, a 34K Production, a division of Trans-Dementia Inc
Brought to you with the assistance of the soundtrack to ‘Au Pair Girls’
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About Earl O'Neill
Freelance gardener, I've thousands of books, thousands of records, one fast motorcycle and one gorgeous smart funny sexy woman. Life's pretty darn neat.
Knowing (or caring) zero about American football – I find your weekly columns a must read Earl for the lateral thinking and cultural references.
Dunno if the ‘Au Pair Girls’ soundtrack is worth listening to but it definitely looks worth watching. An early 70’s British sexploitation romp with two of my favourite actors. John Le Mesurier is best known as Sergeant Wilson in Dad’s Army – the droll 2IC to the pompous Captain Mainwaring. But he had any number of character roles in film and TV for 40 years – and a personal life more captivating than his movies. He started early on the Swinging Sixties – but was universally liked and respected.
The other male lead is Richard O’Sullivan who starred in Man About the House and Robin’s Nest. Every recess break in high school was spent debating whether you preferred the blonde Jo or the brunette Chrissy. I was a staunch Chrissy fan – must have been the mascara. And there was the one armed Irish dishwasher Albert Riddle who broke more than he cleaned. And George and Mildred Roper the landlords – the put upon husband and acid tongued wife.
Thanks for the memories Earl. I’ll be trying to find Au Pair Girls to watch for the male leads – obviously.