NFL Replacement Officials Make Worst Call In League History In Week Two

In week one, the NFL's replacement officials weren't as big a story as many thought they would be, doing an admirable job throughout most of the games, save for a few slip ups (and one extra time out). That all came to an end on Sunday, as the officials played a huge role in deciding games, making the league look foolish, and providing the worst call in NFL history.

The worst example of the incompetence of the scab refs came in Pittsburgh, when a pass over the middle became the breeding ground for the worst call in the history of the league. Check out the play.

Pretty innocuous, no? Santonio Holmes gets hit over the middle by Steelers safety Ryan Clark, loses the ball and it falls harmlessly for an incomplete pass. Very straight forward stuff. However, the replacement officials did not see it that way. They called pass interference against the Steelers. Here is the kicker: the foul was not called on Clark. It was called on Ike Taylor, who makes no contact with Holmes whatsoever. The ball was spotted at the location of the phantom foul, first down Jets.

Now, if the replacement officiating crew wanted to argue that Clark led with his helmet (he didn't really, but at least that would have been plausible) or that he interfered with Holmes, the nation would have accepted it as just a missed call and moved on. Even if they wanted to call defensive holding on Taylor for a little jockeying for position earlier in the play, that would have been fine. But this extreme lapse in judgement is simply worse than anything I have ever seen in NFL history.

Seriously, THE TWO PLAYERS NEVER MADE PHYSICAL CONTACT WITH EACH OTHER. In what way did Taylor interfere with Holmes? Did he use a Jedi mind trick and the refs caught him? Did he send ultraviolet rays to blind Holmes in front of a replacement ref while the scab was checking his schedule at Home Depot? Stonehenge is more explainable than this call.

Keep in mind, when I say that it is the worst call in NFL history, I do not mean in the context of that game's situation. Obviously what happened to Seattle in Super Bowl XL against Pittsburgh was a more high profile, important series of misses than this one in Week Two of a game that the Steelers ended up winning convincingly anyway. I am speaking strictly of each play in a vacuum, with the officiating critiqued equally throughout every play in league history.

So, I leave it to you, my dear friends on the web. Please, find me a call more egregiously wrong than this one. You can't. It is literally impossible.