Woof that one hurt

UCONN. Woah. Boy was I having a nice weekend before that happened. Life will come at you real fast in March. Almost ruined my Sunday dinner! When I was 11 years old, my dad (Duke alum) drove me 2hrs to watch Duke tip off against Kansas in the Sweet Sixteen. A post-Shane Battier Duke squad didn’t have the greatest year, and got stuck in the West regional as a three seed, but that turned into a real treat that they’d play closer to our home.

Nick Collison single-handedly rolled the Blue Devils for 33pts and 19rebs as the Jayhawks clipped the Devils 69-65. JJ Redick went 2-16 from the field! The purest shooter in school history threw up a clankfest in the last game of his freshman year. Roy Williams smirked all across the Anaheim Pond’s court, took down Coach K, and eventually made the NCAA title game before losing to Jim Boeheim’s Syracuse club.

I cried in the concourse because I cried after most massive Duke losses, but in hindsight that was probably the last time I shed a tear for one of Duke’s crushing defeats. Ages 6-11 were full of it though. Lose to UNC, cry. Watch Elton Brand lose in the 1999 National Title to UCONN, cry (I was 7). We’ve been at this awhile!

I checked my phone packing up the car after playing catch with my son at the park. He could tell I was annoyed the “blue team beat the white team”. “Rooting” is actually a new word for him and “keeping score” is a concept that t-ball doesn’t really enforce. So we learned two things yesterday. And because he’s absolutely hooked on anything with a ball, he’s going to have to learn to cry when Duke loses in the Tourney. Hopefully in the next couple of years we can cue the water works on the couch together! That’d be the greatest gift I could give him. A lifetime of watchin sports together. Just can’t ruin dinner though.

A light breakdown of the NFL’s labor negotiations with the League’s Referees is sure to cheer a boy up! So let’s hit the high notes:

- The League’s officials are unionized. Perhaps that goes without saying, but important to understand that the League effectively contracts out officiating services with the Union.

- NFL refs on average earn $385k per year. I’m taking no position on whether that is too high, too little, or just right. It’s just the average earnings relative to the amount of services rendered. You decide if the ref needs a Lambo. If you’d like to see a Lambo and 5bd house for every man, women and child line judge, then good on you.

- The last labor strife between the League and Union occurred in 2012 when the NFL had to employ replacement officials for the season’s first month. No one enjoyed this. Officiating and game quality suffered immensely.

- Money matters, sure, sure. Usually does. But both parties are negotiating not just compensation, but also rule enforcement. Consider how replay is used. How much officiating is controlled by the League office. These types of things.

The last piece is perhaps the most interesting. In an effort to avoid 2012’s catastrophe, the League is actively recruiting replacement officials (for leverage), AND they’re organizing internal infrastructure to support the officials with centralized oversight of certain gameplay from a League office replay/command center. That’s wordy, but it means the League will review replay in real-time from an office and relay enforcement back to the field.

This feels like a very “cat out of the bag” situation. What if it works! What if it scales! What if technology takes away human jobs! OH NO. The NFL has so, so many cameras pointed at the field. Any time a camera’s been added, it’s never been removed. 14 years after the last officiating strike and technology’s in a wildly different place. Communication, visual analysis, image quality. All of it. 2012 didn’t have nearly the capabilities to stitch together multiple angles of a play to determine its fair and just outcome.

Everything for now is posturing and leverage consolidation. NFL officials can return to the field with virtually no advance preparation. Don’t expect a deal tomorrow. Just take notes when each side leaks a little somethin, somethin about the future of how the game on the field is governed.