Wayne Elliott has had a wild week. On Monday night, he wore the white hat as the referee of the crew that bungled the Seahawks-Packers game. On Friday night, Elliott worked a high school football game. Read more after the jump.
In the interim, Elliott says his phone has been ringing with calls from angry fans, telling him he should “commit suicide” and that he “should die.”
But he still believes it was the right call.
“The replay guy just said there is nothing here that we can use to overturn it. It’s going to stand,” Elliott told FOX7 in Austin. (This confirm that, when it came to replay reviews during the lockout, non-replacement replay officials were actually usurping the authority of the on-field referees.)
As we recently explained, via the NFL’s rulebook and casebook, there was enough evidence to overturn the ruling on the field, because Packers safety M.D. Jennings had “control” of the ball before Seahawks receiver Golden Tate, which is the key factor regardless of what happens as they land on the ground and wrestle for the ball. (Sorry, Seahawks truthers, but that’s the truth.)
Elliott also said he has “no regrets” about accepting the assignment as a replacement, and that it was “the most fun I’ve ever had.”
It was the most fun he’s had because he has been working as an official at the lower levels of the sport since 1978. The fact that he hadn’t risen to the NFL or to a high-end college conference in the past 34 years tells us all we need to know about his overall skills. As we’ve said time and again, if the replacements were among the best of the best, they would have been among those who were locked out.
Elliott declined to apologize to the fans of the Packers, explaining that if the call had gone the other way people would be asking if he should apologize to the Seahawks fans.
Scheduled to work the Vikings-Lions game in Week Four, Elliott said he wanted to “get the bad taste out of his mouth” from Monday night’s game — you know, the one for which he has nothing about which to apologize.
