Columnist Sal DeFilippo: With every whistle, heads will turn

Sal DeFilippo

Friday, Sept. 7, 2001 | 10:26 a.m.

Sal DeFilippo's pro football column appears Friday. Reach him at sal@lasvegassun.com or 259-4076.

NFL fans certainly will be focused on new, unfamiliar faces when the season kicks off Sunday.

But although the league has six new head coaches and eight teams with different starting quarterbacks, those aren't the faces that fans will be watching.

The focus, unfortunately, will be on the men in the black-and-white striped uniforms. The regular crew of NFL officials, without a contract since March, had its negotiating clock run out this week. After further review, the lockout stands -- and replacement officials will man the whistles, at least for the opening weekend.

There doesn't figure to be much scrutiny over this -- at least until the first flag is thrown. After that, the network replay machines are in for a workout.

It won't be a pleasant, or fair, situation for the alternate refs, who will bank $2,000 a game apiece, by the way. Not bad for second-rate officials.

But there's an easy way to work this out, and save the NFL a few bucks in the process.

Just go without officials. Period.

Yep. Let the announcers make the call. They think they get all the calls right, anyway. Let that fancy yellow computer-generated line decide whether first downs are made. Might as well have a random computer number pick who wins the coin toss, too.

The league could allow color commentators to determine "conclusive visual evidence" on coaches' challenges. Exception: Dennis Miller, because nobody would understand the explanation of the call.

If we must have on-field officials to maintain order, maybe they should get a little help. On questionable calls, maybe the lead official should be allowed to phone a friend, ot at least poll the audience. The fans in the crowd all think they get every call right, anyway.

Football is guided by the network contracts, after all, and they pay huge amounts for the rights to broadcast the games. They should have some input. I can almost hear Al Michaels now. "The Broncos are lining up for a field goal, but before they could get the kick away, the tribal council has just voted the placekicker off the field. What a tough blow for Denver."

OK, so none of this is based in reality. Face it, there are certain people you have to keep happy in this world, at any cost: Hairdressers, IRS auditors and NFL referees.

All it will take is one game to hinge on a referee's objectionable call, and the media whirlpool will take over. Then we'll see how fast the real refs are hired back, as full-time employees, as they ought to be.