'Inaccurate Reception' got NFL and refs back to the labor table – and fast

Players and coaches moaned, swore, and even got fined for displaying their exasperation at the hapless replacement refs who had made a hash of the first three weeks of this National Football League season. But in the end, it was NFL fandom – Wisconsin cheeseheads, Vegas bookmakers, big-name sponsors, and fantasy football players – whose howling outrage at the so-called Inaccurate Reception on Monday night got the ball moving toward breaking the NFL’s lockout of 121 regular officials over pay, pensions, and accountability.

A seemingly blown call by the replacement officials – ruling a last-second, Hail Mary pass by the Seattle Seahawks a reception rather than an interception – cost the Green Bay Packers the Monday night game and made it clear to nearly everyone involved that the NFL season was sliding quickly toward surrealism, or at least becoming, as ESPN analyst Jon Gruden pointed out, a tragicomedy.

As a result, the NFL and its regular refs reached an agreement just after midnight Thursday to end a month-long lockout and send a cohort of earnest, but ultimately underprepared replacements home.

The botched call on Monday became one of the first refereeing calls to ever turn into a bona fide “national event,” says Vermont Law School sports expert Michael McCann, as sports lounges and living rooms across the country erupted in confusion and outrage, and the postgame show got a record rating.

What followed were two days of intense water-cooler, Facebook, and Twitter outrage that, though the league may be loath to admit it, pushed NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell into two marathon negotiating sessions that ended the lockout just ahead of Thursday night’s game.

The NFL became America’s premier sports league by sheer entertainment value, a demand for perfection, and a hard-earned reputation for integrity. Fielding replacement officials, says Mr. McCann, threatened all that by creating a comedy of errors that ended – predictably, many said – with the “Fail Mary” pass on Monday. (The previous two weeks and the preceding marquee game on Sunday night, too, were full of referee errors, as well as a palpable uncertainty and insecurity in the refs’ demeanor.)

1 | 2

Next