Why are all the referees so brutal in the CFL?

Question

it takes them 5 mins to do the challenges, its supposed to speed up the game, they let receivers go way off side and wont call them, they throw flags on every 2nd return, even if the holding is 100 yards away from the ball carrier, they dont call players being pile driven to the ground yet will call anything even ifyou touch a qb with your pinky you get 15 yards, the centre cant move the ball at all yet they do on every play, on and on..........why are the refs so brutal lately, especially in the last 5 years?

Answer 1

Because they are mad they can't get a job as a high school ref in the US

Answer 2

Because they know nobody is actually watching the game so they can do what ever they want.

Answer 3

Because they are second rate just like the players.

Answer 4

Many of them seem to be very old perhaps they have Alzheimer's

Answer 5

You should try actually watching a game properly.  Maybe try to learn what the actual rules are.  There will always be missed calls in any game in any league, but this season has been very consistent in the application of the rules.  The rules regarding the challenge have nothing to do with the refs, and everything to do with the rules as set by the league, the whole league.   Some off-sides are missed, but many are called against all teams.  There are various rules that call for the tossing of the flag upon violation, not just the ones that go against your team.  Quarterbacks in the motion of throwing are particularly vulnerable to injury, and must be protected.  I take it your team is one of the ones that has been losing lately?  Those are the only fans that complain about officiating, whether it be football, hockey, baseball, basketball, whatever.

Answer 6

Even the league has basically admitted that they need to do better.  Mark Cohon was interviewed on the Friday Night Football pre-game show recently and on OTR.

On OTR he stated that he's disciplined and fined referees for missing calls.

On FNF he stated that the league is finding it difficult to recruit decent refs because of the weak state of the game at the amateur and college level in Canada.  There just isn't enough talent to draw from, so they are considering recruiting in the US.

Personally, I've seen two calls this year where the refs blew the whistle on an "incomplete" pass while the ball was still in the air.  There was one where the ball went way over the receiver's head so the ref blew the whistle, but the ball landed in the Safety's arms about ten yards behind the play.  If I remember correctly, they gave him the interception but they ruled the play dead and didn't give any run back yards.  

Last week week during the BC game the ball was tipped in the end-zone and the whistle blew right away while the ball was still in the air.  The ball landed in Jason Clermont's arms (he was behind the play) for a TD and the ref's ruled it a TD right away so BC was lucky, but the ref had been too quick to blow the whistle.  I have a DVR so I played it back several times and the ref did blow the whistle while the ball was still in the air.

They are also terrible at calling no-yards. Since both players are rarely stranding with their feet on the yard lines or hash marks it's almost always a judgement call.  I've seen way too many plays where there were players that were inside the five yards and weren't called, and I've seen plays where the cover guy had over-run the punt and was past the punt returner and heading in the opposite direction and was flagged regardless.

They're also having a hard time with the new punt out of bounds rule.  I can understand that it might be difficult to judge where the ball goes out of bounds on the fly, unless the ref is standing right under it when it goes out.  BUT - Monday afternoon in Montreal, Hamilton punted the ball out of bounds on the fly and the refs put the ball on Montreal's 22, which meant that the ball went out of bounds in the air at the 22.  They had thrown a flag, but then they picked it up and said "no foul"!!!  How can that be possible????