Officiating has been glaringly bad, but don't expect NFL to fix a thing

Referees like Ed Hochuli have been under intense scrutiny this season. Getty Images Don Banks's Mailbag Submit a comment or question to Don Banks. Name: Email: Hometown: Question: SEND Follow Don Banks on Twitter

After the Steelers' game-winning "plane-gate'' touchdown in Baltimore, I don't know what passes as indisputable visual evidence these days, but I do know one thing that's indisputable in this 2008 NFL season: The league's game officials are having a bad year.

We all know there are replay beefs, questionable calls and outright mistakes made by the men in zebra stripes each season. But this year's crop of controversial judgments have packed a notably high-impact wallop, with two of the most memorable examples having potentially decided two of the NFL's eight division races.

Hyperbole? We think not. If referee Ed Hochuli's inadvertent whistle hadn't negated that Jay Cutler fumble late in a Week 2 Chargers-Broncos game, San Diego and Denver could be entering Week 16 tied with records of 7-7, heading for that winner-take-all Week 17 showdown in sunny Southern California. As is, Denver (8-6) leads San Diego (6-8) by two games with two games remaining, and the Chargers need a mini-miracle to punch a playoff ticket.

And then there was Sunday's contretemps in Baltimore, where I watched that final-minute Santonio Holmes catch be ruled no touchdown, then somewhat surprisingly reversed to a touchdown after a replay review. Referee Walt Coleman botched the explanation of the reversal, failing to even address the central point of whether the ball broke the plane of the goal line, and for my money the call stretched the word "indisputable'' beyond recognition. (After all, one man's indisputable is another man's disputable).

It's not as if Pittsburgh's 13-9 win was a gift from the NFL sent from heaven above, but let's face the facts: That call was the pivotal moment in a game that settled the AFC North in favor of the Steelers, and put Pittsburgh into position to chase the AFC's No. 1 postseason seed this week at Tennessee. You don't have to play the six degrees of separation game to make the case that Coleman and crew could wind up playing a significant role in determining who represents the AFC in Tampa this February.

Those were our two bookend moments in the annus horribilis that 2008 has turned into for NFL game officials, but to be sure, there were other low-lights. To wit:

-- Referee Scott "Vegas'' Green getting the Troy Polamalu touchdown wrong at the end of that 11-10 Pittsburgh win over San Diego (to the ever-lasting enmity of point-spread gamblers everywhere).

-- Baltimore got the short end of the stick in Week 5 as well, when it lost 13-10 to Tennessee thanks in part to a very questionable fourth-quarter roughing the passer call on linebacker Terrell Suggs. The penalty came on a third-and-10 Kerry Collins incompletion, and while Suggs was whistled for hitting the quarterback in the helmet, replays did not remotely support that conclusion. The call wiped out a Titans false start on the play, because referee Bill Carollo said the players did not hear the whistle, with the personal foul superseding the false start. Greatly aided by the phantom call, the Titans drove for the game-winning touchdown and remained undefeated.

-- Our man Hochuli was back under the microscope in Week 4 when he ruled Carolina defensive end Julius Peppers had roughed Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan, which took a Panthers interception return for a touchdown off the board. Replays showed Peppers hit Ryan as the quarterback released the ball -- not late -- and led with his shoulder, not his helmet.

-- In a crushing Week 5 loss at home to Minnesota on Monday night football, the Saints were jobbed when Hochuli and crew missed an obvious facemask by the Vikings on running back Reggie Bush, who committed a pivotal fumble later on the same play.

-- In a Week 10 loss at Arizona, again under the glare of the Monday night spotlight, the 49ers cried foul after referee Tony Corrente and crew moved the line of scrimmage of the game's final play from the one to the two-and-a-half-yard line based on a replay review. San Francisco's play call was based on being on the one, and the chaotic ending of the game didn't bathe anyone in glory in the five-point 49ers defeat.

-- And just last Thursday night, though it didn't wind up costing the Bears a game they had to have against New Orleans, who knows what the officials were watching when Saints cornerback Jason David mugged Chicago tight end Greg Olsen in the end zone in the final seconds of regulation? On some level, pass interference in the NFL has to be like that famous Supreme Court definition of pornography: You know it when you see it.

More and more in my travels around the league, I'm hearing the growing perception that this season has been the worst officiated in years, and the natural question then becomes: Will the powers that be in the league -- read: the NFL's competition committee -- take any steps designed to tweak the replay system or improve the imperfect science of game officiating?

Don't hold your breath waiting for the big fix. It's not likely to come. On Tuesday morning, I talked to one general manager from a team that has reason to feel aggrieved this season, and while he admits this year's controversial calls have been more magnified, he doesn't know how you would improve the current replay system or ever completely eliminate human error.

"There have been quite a few controversial calls,'' the general manager said. "But I've never felt at any point this season like we were victims.''

Which is probably not entirely the same sentiment of outrage shared by his team's fans, coaches and players. The sentiment "We wuz robbed'' has hung heavily over the NFL landscape at times this season.

Although there's still plenty of time for another high-profile questionable call or two to spur the league into action, according to the sources I talked to, nothing concrete seems to be in the air at the moment.

Other than the general, nagging consensus that this has not been the best of years for the NFL's whistle-blower set.