Week 3 of the NFL season brought the issues of replacement officials directly into the spotlight, most glaringly on Monday Night Football when the Seahawks won on a controversial touchdown catch.
Coaches around the league have been dealing with misinterpreted calls, wrong penalties and now that it has cost a team a game, teams hope the lockout will finally end. But there are still many issues to deal with until that happens, including getting coaches and players to tone down their verbal abuse of referees.
The league tried to take action to deter that on Monday, fining Broncos head coach John Fox $30,000 and defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio $25,000 for arguing with officials in week 2.
''There is a longstanding NFL rule prohibiting verbal or physical abuse of game officials,'' NFL executive vice president of football operations Ray Anderson said to the Associated Press.
In Denver's game against the Atlanta Falcons on Sept. 17 on Monday Night Football, Fox got into a heated dispute with an official. After getting called for a 12 men on the field penalty, Fox challenged the play, but was told he couldn't do so and the referees threw a flag. Fox became heated and insisted he was correct, which is the rule. After the challenge the call was upheld, but left the coach fuming.
Later in the game Fox came onto to their field during a dispute about a fumble recovery, which was given to the Falcons even though it appeared the Broncos recovered it. Del Rio was also seen screaming at officials at other points during the game.
''There's nothing much to say, other than that the league has its policy, there are procedures,'' Fox said. ''It's kind of an in-house thing."
The league was also reviewing the actions from Sunday night's game between the Ravens and Patriots, including the conduct of John Harbaugh and an incident with New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick.
Belichick was seen after the game grabbing the arm of one of the replacement officials as they ran off the field following the Patriots' 31-30 loss to the Ravens.
''When the game was over I went out and I was really looking for an explanation from the officials as to whether the play was under review,'' Belichick said. ''I did try to get the official's attention as he was coming off the field to ask that, but I really wasn't able to do that.''
The incident followed Baltimore's kick as time expired by Justin Tucker that appeared to go inside the goal posts or right above it.
''I saw our players waving that it was no good and I saw the officials giving the signal that it was good,'' he said. ''I just wasn't sure from where I was standing whether the ball, when it went over the crossbar, was above the upright or in between or not in between the uprights. So I didn't know whether or not that play was going to be under review or whether it wasn't.''
The league has tried to take a hard line when it comes to contact with officials, but Belichick explained that he was just looking for clarification and there was no malicious intent.
''I've coached in this league a long time and I've never been penalized, never had any incidents with officials or anything like that,'' he said. ''I have never meant any disrespect or in any way tried to abuse or be disrespectful to the officials and the job that they do. I was trying to get an explanation for obviously an important call, play, in that game, and that's the No. 1 thing between coaches and officials that's always at the forefront is just communication of what's going on, what's happening.''
Belichick is known for his icy demeanor and has had experience with strange endings to games involving officials, as he explained on Monday.
Back in 2000 in a game against the Dolphins, after Patriots quarterback Drew Bledsoe was called for a fumble and an illegal forward pass at the end of a game, Belichick told the referee Johnny Grier that the play appeared to be an incompletion and the Patriots should have another play.
"As I was walking off the field with (referee Johnny Grier) at that time, I talked to him about, 'This seems like an incomplete pass, there should be more time on the clock, we should have another play here,'" Belichick explained. "(His response was) 'No, that's the ruling, the game's over.' We go back into the locker room, 10 minutes or so later, Johnny comes back and says they are reviewing the play and we may have to go back out and finish the game. About five minutes after that, players got dressed, we came back out for a final play in that game.
Sunday night's game featured 24 penalties, including 10 called against the Patriots.
There were other incidents in week 3, including with Washington Redskins offensive coordinator Kyle Shannahan. He was whistled for yelling at an official at the end of Washington's loss to the Bengals 38-31 on Sunday.
After officials wrongly called for a penalty and a 10-secon runoff, the Bengals began leaving the field thinking the game was over.
''When I overheard the official tell the head coach that the game was over after the false start penalty, I tried to explain that the game was not over,'' Kyle Shanahan's said in a statement. ''That is what resulted in the unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. I tried to get an explanation of how I could get that penalty when half of the other team was on the field as well.''
The NFL had been lucky for the first couple weeks of the season due to the fact that the replacement officials were solid and did not seem to cost any team a game in the standings with a wrong call.
But after the chaos on Monday night and the incidents with coaches, the NFL will be forced to decide how they want to deal with punishments for coaches with the referee lockout going forward.
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