[SPTO]

I think things are fine as is WITHOUT the new rules put in place this year. If you go back to the way the QB was treated circa 2003 I think we wouldn't be happening these kind of discussions. The thing is, these rules almost certainly would never happen if star QBs hadn't gone down. I remember when Carson Palmer was injured in the playoff game against the Steelers and they put in the rule about hitting below the knees. They never really enforced it that much but once Brady went down (on a far less serious way mind you) the rule gets more teeth put in and now we're seeing all kinds of hits to the QBs being called roughing the passer.

The NFL needs to realize that QBs are players too. I'm not saying let's go back to the way QBs were treated in the '70s and up to the mid '80s. Heck, in 1986 about half the QBs in the league were hit with serious injuries! I just think there needs to be a standard applied and not just a "star QB" standard because i've seen guys that aren't stars getting killed out here but there's no penalty called.

I also think that there should be some kind of umbrella football officials organization, one that takes all college and NFL officials which would employ, train and send them out on assignments. This would actually do away with the hipocrisy of college officials because they would no longer be hired by the various conferences but rather contracted out to the various conferences. ALL the refs would be held to a standard and be evaluated. There would be a promotion/demotion process NFL-(biggest college conference)-(2nd biggest conference) so on so forth with the ultimate goal being the NFL. We would then see some older guys with experience calling NFL games but have some younger guys peppered in.

I know it's a pipe dream but I think something like that could work. As for who would be the evaluator and such of the referees i'd hire a guy like Jerry Markbriet (sp) to do it.