Glad referee Jeff Rice is okay, but this is why old referees who aren't in great shape shouldn't be officiating in the NFL #NEvsDEN pic.twitter.com/quYL2QSNIo
— Andrew Jerell Jones, Luke 1:37 (BlueSky too now) (@sluggahjells) November 13, 2017
Talk about being blindsided. This guy went from strolling in the park to being taken off on a stretcher in a matter of seconds. I will have to agree with Andrew here. The NFL needs to shape up these refs. Some NFL refs, depending on which position are in the middle of every play. Defenders and receivers zooming by them, yet this very rarely seems to happen. It’s like they’re wearing invisibility cloaks. I understand it takes a long time and a lot of accomplishment to reach the NFL as a referee, but there’s also gotta be some type of physical standard. We can’t have guys breaking their hips just from toppling over. Refs should be treated like players or police officers. There should be some type of referee combine of physical training guidelines that need to be met. If you don’t make it through the academy, you can’t be a ref.
Refs shouldn’t be so physically ill-equipped that they need to be carted off the field after getting knocked into, we need Terry Tate office linebacker type refs. Guys that can take a hit, laugh it off and brush off their shoulders just in time to hand out an unnecessary roughness penalty to the asshole that just took him out.
P.S. Maybe this should also go for everyone on the sidelines too. Pretty sure Brock killed a guy with a pass into the sidelines.
