Gresh & Zo: The Joke That Is NFL Replacement Refs

With Mike Flynn filling in for Zo, Gresh and Flynn begin Thursday's show with some replacement referee talk.

The refs in Wednesday night's Patriots-Giants game were, to put it bluntly, not good. They were slow to make calls, spot balls, and looked completely lost at various times during the game. Head referee Don King topped it off by taking nearly 5 minutes to call a couple fouls on

Both Gresh and Flynn agree a deal needs to get done before the replacement refs get their turn in a regular season game that actually counts.

"Last night's official, Don King, the head referee -- what a joke this has become with the NFL referees," said Gresh.

"The real refs, the guys who are trying to negotiate a new deal, are sitting home watching these games, having a beer and laughing at this. Any negotiation at the table doesn't do as much for them as games last night," said Flynn. "These guys are confused about spotting balls, 'is it two fouls on the kicking team?', 'where is the game ball?'"

"These guys are confused. For the referees that are holding out, they don't have to do anything!" said Flynn. "These replacement guys are doing it themselves."

"If I'm a coach and my offense can handle it, if these slap-asses out there who are reading the book during the game to make sure they have the rules right, I'm going no huddle. I'm playing as fast as I can because I want the pressure on them, I want them to screw up and to give me an advantage. The coaches haven't said anything, but their 'gotcha' is 'we're going to come out and play so fast we're going to force them to keep up with us and they're going to miss a call and it's going to be an advantage to us.' An absolute stick-it-to-them."

"If it embarrasses the league, I don't care because I'm trying to win a game and they'll help me do it because they can't keep up," said Gresh. "Most of them have never done a big-time game... we're not talking about guys that did a BCS Championship game... we're talking about guys that were doing Williams-Amherst and high level high school games."

"Next week, if a game is lost on a bad call, I find it hard to believe these coaches are going to be able to bite their tongues," said Gresh. "If you haven't come to the realization that this ref thing could become a big issue, I hope that after last night you're hip to it."