After three weeks of the regular season, the regular NFL officials will be back just in time for the beginning of Week 4. This comes as a little surprise to me as I initially didn’t think a deal would get done so quickly.

But here we are and we are happy. I am glad that a deal was made and that these officials will be back. The replacements did their best with little experience but it was time for them to go. There was just too much pressure on the NFL to get something done before the next week began. More importantly, if the replacement officials were still around, who knows what kind of abuse they would get from coaches, players and fans.

More Hochuli: "We've taken 18 extensive rules test, watched hours and hours of video every week. We've worked very hard to be prepared."—
Jeff Darlington (@JeffDarlington) September 27, 2012

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Confusion.

I honestly don’t think that this is the final straw. I don’t think that there will be an immediate change where the real officials will be back.

Despite the horrible ending to Monday’s game, there is just too much money that still needs to be figured out. And because of that, I don’t think a resolution will be made within this week to make this right.

What sucks is that there was so much time to get it done but now it’s leaked into the season and hurt the integrity of the game. I am not blaming these replacement officials because they aren’t the ones at fault. They are not equipped for the job and they are only here because the league needed officials.

I really am not happy with what has happened now and the immediate reaction is strong from Monday. But it’s not going to be easy to figure out this whole mess. We’ll continue to have these replacements run the game and the fans, players will enter Week 4 angrier than last week.

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Replacement officials could be used for this upcoming season and that saddens me. Not only would I miss out essays of explanations from Ed Hochuli, but it’s hard imagining the most popular sport in American officiated by people who don’t have that kind of experience.

There’s a fear that the game would get sloppy because there would be missed calls or just bad interpretations. The quality of the game, at least in my mind, could be in serious jeopardy.

What I do hope is that if replacement officials have to be used, at least they provide us some funny moments. If it’s going to be bad, at least make it entertaining.

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