COLUMN: 'New' refs are superstars after new deal

Head official Gene Staratore reviews a play in the booth in Thursday night's Ravens-Browns game. (Photo Courtesy of multimediaimpre/Flickr)

Referees have always been sport’s whipping boys—the scapegoat one minute and virtually nonexistent the next. However, Thursday night in Baltimore in a game between the Cleveland Browns and the Baltimore Ravens, the referees were treated like royalty. Like Mick Jagger and the Stones running out onto a stadium stage, Gene Staratore and crew were welcomed to thousands of cheers and applause at M&T Bank Stadium. Which calls into question: has there ever been a moment in sports history where a crew of officials was outright applauded BEFORE a game?

After a week that centered around a blown call on Monday Night Football between the Seattle Seahawks and Green Bay Packers, the public outcry for doing away with the replacement officials spread like wildfire. All forms of social media were calling for NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's head on a spike and you couldn't watch SportsCenter without hearing someone's opinion on the matter. (I literally have seen the play in question AT LEAST 50 times by now.)

However, after much deliberation, Goodell and the NFL Referees Association came to an agreement Wednesday night. Just as the ink from the contract’s signature had dried, murmurings of when the referees would start took to the masses. I know I was dead set on them starting on Sunday, leaving the Thursday Night game to a crew of replacement refs—an end of a short, critical era in NFL history. Rather than face any more heat then he had already taken, Goodell begged the referees to start immediately. (Well, at least that’s how I would picture how it went down.)

Referees are supposed to be mere mediators—enforcers of NFL law while being non-objective in all of their decisions. The issues that came about with the replacement officials should never have happened, but it was up to the NFL and the Referees Association to settle their differences for one reason. Not money, not pride and not for personal gain, but to protect the shield of the NFL. To protect the game of football takes priority over all, and, when it was all said and done, both parties came to terms with this important aspect.

No matter the praise the referees received Thursday night and will receive for this Sunday and Monday games, once the first bad call is made, the shower of boos will rain down on the referees’ heads—just how it should be. All normalcies then will, and only then, be restored to the NFL universe.