I was wondering if anybody noticed this

[JawnyBlaze]

1 hour ago, run-run-pass-punt said:

Yeah they make plenty of mistakes, just like players and coaches, etc. Personally, I'd rather have a human game full of flaws than some sort of digital "perfection". Life is messy, and I have no problem with sport being the same.

Why? The human game is the players. They should all be held to an equal standard, not a luck of the draw where refs’ biases and inconsistencies heavily influence games.  How anyone could want anything other than perfection when it comes to enforcement of the rules and judgements like this astounds me. 

[run-run-pass-punt]

1 hour ago, JawnyBlaze said:

Why? The human game is the players. They should all be held to an equal standard, not a luck of the draw where refs’ biases and inconsistencies heavily influence games.  How anyone could want anything other than perfection when it comes to enforcement of the rules and judgements like this astounds me. 

From my perspective you can't get rid of "imperfections" if you want to call it that. Just look at instant replay. We look at situations more closely all the time and are still left with grey areas. We slow down the tape and scrutinize it from every angle, and often we still can't say for sure. We look so closely that we reached a point where we can't even define what a "catch" is lol.

For me, sport and life, are about competition, yes. But within that competition things will never be completely clear-cut and/or just. You can do everything "right" and still be undone by circumstance outside your control. Or you can make (big) mistakes - intentionally or not - and be rewarded by the myriad moving parts of life which are utterly outside your influence.

Sport is drama, and like life, within that drama there will be turns of fate that tell the story. That unfolding will not always be clean and tidy, but looking for ultimate fairness in either sport and life is a fantasy that will never be realized, no matter what systems are put in place. For that reason, I am comfortable with the mistakes that are made. That's life.

[JawnyBlaze]

46 minutes ago, run-run-pass-punt said:

From my perspective you can't get rid of "imperfections" if you want to call it that. Just look at instant replay. We look at situations more closely all the time and are still left with grey areas. We slow down the tape and scrutinize it from every angle, and often we still can't say for sure. We look so closely that we reached a point where we can't even define what a "catch" is lol.

For me, sport and life, are about competition, yes. But within that competition things will never be completely clear-cut and/or just. You can do everything "right" and still be undone by circumstance outside your control. Or you can make (big) mistakes - intentionally or not - and be rewarded by the myriad moving parts of life which are utterly outside your influence.

Sport is drama, and like life, within that drama there will be turns of fate that tell the story. That unfolding will not always be clean and tidy, but looking for ultimate fairness in either sport and life is a fantasy that will never be realized, no matter what systems are put in place. For that reason, I am comfortable with the mistakes that are made. That's life.

Of course it’ll never be perfect, but we should expect a helluva lot higher standard than we have now.  Always strive for perfection, even though it may never be possible to achieve. 

[Mr. Scot]

Just to clarify, when I said I was wondering if anybody noticed this, I meant at the national level.