When I was a kid the local news station used to bring a
monkey into the studio to make stock market picks. They’d compare the monkey’s
picks to those of an area stockbroker and in some situations, the monkey made
clearly better choices. It was harmless but pretty funny.
If the internet has taught us anything it’s that monkeys can
do a number of amazing things. They can ice skate, wait tables and they can play
the drums. With that being said, I’m fairly sure that if a monkey was given a
choice between a “completion” button or an “incompletion” button it would at
very least be able to press one of them without waiting 20 minutes. Even better,
the monkey would most likely be right half of the time. Sound kind of
dumb? I’d take it over what we currently
have with the NFL replacement refs.
This is not a knock on the replacement refs. It really
isn’t. They’re doing the best they can with the training they’ve received. But
if we’re allowing wins and losses to be effected by someone (or something) that
does not have a complete understanding of the game, why not have a little fun
with it?
Monkeys would most likely get in the way on the field so I
think we should have one sitting in a review booth. If a coach wants to challenge
a play he can throw a banana on the field at which point, the cameras would go
to the booth, the monkey (dressed in a tuxedo because that’s always funnier)
would be prompted to hit one of the buttons. Whatever the monkey picks determines
whether or not the call stands.
Would it be frustrating at times? No doubt. But no more
frustrating than games are now and at least we’d know what we’re getting. When
the NFL office receives 70,000 phone calls after a bad call and it’s discussed
on the NBC Nightly News, perhaps it’s time to start negotiating with the real
officials with a greater sense of urgency. The NFL fans who throw billions of
dollars at the league deserve better.
Maybe you don’t like my monkey idea but you have to admit; even
the most under qualified monkeys wouldn’t intentionally jeopardize the
integrity of the most popular sport in America over matters such as a referee’s
salary, pension or job security.